Caruana Dingli and Pace set new age-group marks

Records continued to tumble at Tal-Qroqq Swimming Complex on Saturday afternoon when two new marks were set during the last time-trial for the calendar year.

These were age-group records and both were set in the 'B' category, which incorporates the 11- and 12-year-old boys and 12- and 13-year-old girls.

In the 200 metres breaststroke for boys, Edward Caruana Dingli, of Sirens, shaved 19 hundredths of a second off Kenny D'Ugo's time of 3:01.94 when clocking 3:01.75. That record had stood in the books since September 1995.

Neptunes' 13-year-old swimmer Talisa Pace was again in the limelight. She followed up her last records in the 50 and 100 metres freestyle in the last two months when covering the four-lap race in 2:19.41. This was a huge improvement of 4.24 seconds on her own previous 200 metres freestyle mark registered last July.

Once again, some of the young swimmers did quite well considering the unfavourable weather conditions on Saturday.

It is hoped that the pause brought about by the closure of the national pool over the Christmas period and during January, will only minimally hinder the swimmers' positive momentum when they resume their competitive endeavours in February.

During January, the national team group will continue with their training programme at the 25-metre heated pool at the MFA Leisure and Fitness Centre at Ta' Qali.

Their next commitment is a training camp in Trieste between December 27 and January 8, after which a couple of them are scheduled to participate in an international meet in Geneva, Switzerland.