Olympic Museum

Valletta, our capital city, enjoys a UNESCO listing as a World Heritage City. Visitors gaze in awe at the legacy left by the Knights of St John.

The city teems with attractions and tourists are spoilt for choice as they hop from one site to another in the hope of making the most of their time in this historic city.

Valletta is the island's melting pot of culture and heritage. For museum lovers, a day is probably not enough to visit all the city's historical landmarks.

While the list is extensive, sports enthusiasts are always let down because there is no Olympic Museum to visit.

The Malta Olympic Committee (MOC) houses a very small museum within its headquarters at the National Pool Complex. Some interesting artefacts are displayed in showcases. In reality, the room that houses these exhibits also serves as a boardroom and as such, accessibility to the public is restricted.

The MOC is now seriously mulling over the idea of setting up an Olympic Museum inside its old headquarters in Valletta.

Malta has been competing at the Olympic Games since 1928 and over the years athletes, officials and administrators have donated a wide range of exhibits related to their participation not only at these Games but also in other important events such as the Commonwealth and Mediterranean Games and the Games for the Small States of Europe.

Opening a museum of this kind is a significant challenge. The presentation of artefacts has to be done in such a way as to help visitors understand the relevance and context of each section.

A tempting proposal would be to whitewash the walls, transfer the showcases to the old headquarters, stick some labels next to the artefacts and open the doors to the general public.

But that would only be a half-baked solution. The MOC has to consider all its options before embarking on this project.

Modern museums have become a science in their own right and the Malta Olympic Museum should be a showcase of authentic memorabilia that traces the island's joy and anguish in sporting events since the early 1900s.

I am confident that private collectors of sports memorabilia would be willing to come forward and loan their prized collections to the Olympic Museum, provided that these are exhibited in a professional manner and in a secure location.

Some collectors have gone to great lengths and paid substantial amounts of money to lay their hands on authentic sports memorabilia.

The Olympic Museum should not be considered as a commercial venture. Its educational purpose should compensate for the lack of adequate revenue from admission fees.

Through the Directorate of the Olympic Academy, schools should be invited for a guided tour of the museum. One of the sessions of Skolasport should also include a visit to the Olympic Museum.

The process of tapping funds from the International Olympic Committee and finalising the strategy for this venture will take their due time.

In the meantime, the MOC would do well to look into the possibility of putting up a one-off exhibition on sports memorabilia. Apart from artefacts, this exhibition should also feature historic photographs representing milestones in Malta's sporting history.

An agency like Heritage Malta will probably support such an initiative and could also provide its expertise in the design of such an exhibition.

Sports exhibition

I recently learnt that there was a weak attempt to organise such an exhibition before the Games of the Small States of Europe in Malta last year but federations and associations were too busy with the logistics of the Games to ensure their support for this venture.

Now is the right time to give this exhibition a second shot, in the process sparking a drive for the Olympic Museum project to become a reality.

The Museum will also be a tribute to all those Olympians, other athletes and officials who worked relentlessly in years gone by to promote sports in Malta.