Sensible decisions

Call it anticipation or merely coincidence but a few days after I expressed my concern at the eerie silence echoing from the corridors of the Malta Olympic Committee Headquarters, a news conference was called precisely to shed light on the upcoming edition of the Games of the Small States of Europe (GSSE).

After years of procrastination, heads have finally begun to roll as journalists were told that the volleyball squads and the basketball men's team will not be travelling to Andorra.

I am not surprised that the men's basketball and volleyball teams have not made the selection process. In recent editions of the Games, the two squads struggled to cope with the pace of their opponents.

Our volleyball and basketball leagues are not competitive enough to ensure that our athletes are capable of meeting the challenge of international matches against fellow minnow European countries.

While the exclusion of these two squads had been in the air for the last few months, the fall from grace of the women's volleyball team is of serious concern.

Four years ago in San Marino, our girls defied the odds and clinched a bronze medal. Two years ago in Malta, they just missed out on a medal but their first two victories, coupled with narrow defeats, earned them positive reviews from various media.

Two years down the road, this team spirit seems to have fizzled out. I am told that most of the players who formed the backbone of the volleyball team have since hung up their boots for one reason or another and the present crop of youngsters simply do not possess adequate experience to pose any serious challenge to the other contenders.

Given the absence of three team squads, the Maltese contingent will obviously be thinner than in previous editions. The return of Pippo Psaila as Director of Sports meant that stringent Minimum Qualifying Standards were set for athletes gunning for final selection.

The philosophy has shifted from participative to competitive. Only athletes who stand a decent chance of winning a medal will be selected to make the trip to Andorra and perhaps rightly so.

With a population hovering on the 400,000 mark, Malta should be well poised to challenge Cyprus and Luxembourg for the lion's share of the medals.

Unfortunately, we are still weak in the pool and very few swimmers have risen through the ranks to raise our hopes for a break from tradition.

At present, Angela Galea is our lone ranger in swimming. I am not sure whether a swimmer from Liechtenstein has ever taken gold in the pool in these Games but if this were to occur, that would leave Malta as the only nation still chasing an elusive gold medal in swimming since 1985.

Some time ago, I had a short conversation with a colleague on what constitutes success. The number of medals won in an edition of the GSSE is a clear indicator of success but then again I beg to differ. Let me try to explain.

Athletics and swimming are the two disciplines with the largest number of medals to be won. In other disciplines, only one or two medals are up for grabs.

So should success be gauged on raw data or percentages? I tend to favour the latter as it tends to give a clearer picture of the results achieved.

Then again this may be misleading. An athlete may win a gold medal in an individual event in which only three athletes competed whereas another athlete claims silver in an event featuring 18 athletes. Who of the two is the more successful? Public perception tends to favour the latter even if the Hungarian Tables (an instrument devised to monitor and compare athletes' performances in both track and field events) deliver a different outcome.

Classification by countries in any games is based on the number of gold medals won. The colour of the medal makes all the difference. In any sporting contest, the focus is always on the winner.

Shift in quality

The Malta Olympic Committee has declared that it would like to see a shift in the quality of medals won at the Games.

This seems a very hard task in Andorra for a number of reasons which I had highlighted in a previous article. Malta tends to do very well in squash and sailing and these two disciplines have been axed from the sports programme in Andorra.

Other leading sportsmen have lost valuable time as the squabbling between the MOC and the KMS had a negative impact on the psychological preparation of our athletes.

Uncertainty is the worst possible scenario during the run-up to an important event. Unfortunately, our athletes had to contend with this unwelcome distraction as our sports administrators were even contemplating pulling out of the Andorra games before good old George Abela knocked some sense into the feuding parties.

And since I have always called a spade a spade, I trust that I should offer an apology to Rashid Chouhal. Three weeks ago I had enquired on the whereabouts of the gold medal winner in the long jump in the GSSE 2003. No sooner had I questioned his present ability than Chouhal broke the national record!

Even though his current form makes him a firm contender for the gold medal in Andorra, his selection in the Malta team is not guaranteed as I am told that there is still a rift between the athlete and the MOC.

With Tanya Blake out of the equation, can we really afford to keep another potential gold medal winner away from Andorra? I don't think so!