The strides forward made by Maltese swimmers in recent years have again been underlined by some encouraging performances during this year’s Easter International Meet which resulted in 15 new limits, of which five were national records.

With the male swimmers performing in the shadow of their female counterparts until a couple of years ago, the need was felt for the boys to make their presence felt.

Aware of this prevailing imbalance national coach Andy Colbourn, helped in no small measure by club coaches, devised programmes which would help the males reach higher standards.

With the likes of Neil Agius and Andrea Agius leading the way, there has been a crop of promising talent emerging in these last years.

Mark Sammut was in the forefront, with Edward Caruana Dingli, Andrea M. Agius, Neil Muscat and Julian Harding, all record-breakers in the Easter Meet, with absentees Andrew Chetcuti, Matthew Zammit and Daniel Galea, completing the array among others.

Nicola Muscat was the standard-bearer as far as the girls were concerned with a spate of 12 age-group and three national records in the last three years, followed by Amy Micallef’s seven.

Colbourn was confident that more progress is in store given that this momentum is kept up.

How do you rate this year’s Easter Meet in terms of quality performances?

Participation was down due to the lack of foreign teams which was because Easter fell late this year so dates interfered with school and exams.

Local turn-out was great despite exam commitments. There were quite a few quality performances both in age-group and national records which shows that the standard of swimming is still rising.

There were 15 records plus two MQS’s.

The records and MQSs have been achieved thanks to the dedication of the swimmers and the excellent coaching they are receiving from their respective clubs and coaches.

I think the improvement in the boys’ sector is due to the new popularity the sport is enjoying thanks to swimmers like Neil Agius and Andrea Agius who have shown that it is possible to be successful swimmers. So, the boys are not so easily lured to waterpolo now before they ever get a chance to reach a good standard in swimming.

Do you think performances will improve as the swimmers should taper for the GSSE?

Well, the idea of tapering for these competitions is so that the swimmers can reach their best performances. Yes, I certainly expect to see faster times during the GSSE and other international events, including the worlds.

With some exceptions the girls seem to have reached a plateau. What is your opinion?

The girls at the moment seem to be at a standstill yes, except for a few and this is due to many factors involved with growing up, school and social pressures.

However, I do not think it will be a lasting problem as there are many new faces on the horizon who will soon fill the gaps and push the already established ones through this period and on to better results.

Further progress is imperative if our swimmers are to strike success and win medals in the GSSE. How confident are you we can make these inroads?

Well, all I can say about the GSSE is we are going there with MQS times. So, obviously I am hopeful even if there are many factors that can affect the results, and whether or not we come away with any medals.

Apart from your plans and programmes to help swimmers achieve higher targets, what else needs to be done on a national scale to improve our swimming standards?

First, we need more funding obviously and more facilities like another pool.

Our own physiological testing set-up is also important.

Maria Mifsud Bonnici is the team’s physiologist and nutritionist and she has helped us enormously with very limited equipment and resources. If she had more at her disposal improvement would be faster.

Apart from this, a lot more international competitions and a masseur to accompany the squads in competitions are needed. These are the priorities at the moment.