Gail Rizzo is synonymous with Maltese swimming. She was not yet 10 when she started re-writing our record books at age-group categories in the late eighties and later at senior level.

Not surprisingly, the girl is now one of Malta’s leading coaches, working closely with national coach Andy Colbourn in youth development as Neptunes WPSC head coach before passing her swimmers on to the national team.

The girl is as dedicated in imparting her knowledge in the sport as much as she was totally committed to improving her swimming standards when she was still active.

Evidence of this is the numerous swimmers under her charge who have given the sport a new lease of life in the last 10 years.

The latest crop was a group of boys and girls who set new senior and age-group limits in the recent National Championships.

“Breaking a national record is always a big achievement,” Rizzo said. “It was greater in my regard and that of the coaches working at Neptunes as we were in charge of the relay teams (made up of Andrew Chetcuti, Edward Caruana Dingli, Mark Sammut, Quelin Zammit and David Zammit) who set two new freestyle marks.”

Rizzo then spoke of Matthew Zammit, who started with IASIS and is now under her guidance, Amy Micallef and Nikki Muscat, who all maintained their upward curve when establishing age-group records.

Referring to new boy Chetcuti who broke new ground with a 53.06 seconds record in the 100 metres freestyle, Rizzo said the lad has been in Dubai since he was much younger, as his father works for Emirates in that country.

“However, he took part in our previous nationals as a young boy,” Rizzo continued. “I am not all that surprised with his improvement because I believe he can even go faster as he is very promising.”

On a general note, she echoed her commitment to “working hard on teaching youngsters the basics of stroke mechanics, which plays a very important role in the development of the athlete. It means a lot to us as coaches when preparing these swimmers”.

“As years went by, I achieved excellent results with my younger swimmers which were reflected in the numerous age-group records broken over these past years,” Rizzo said, showing more than a touch of altruism when stressing that she was delighted that her swimmers broke her own records.

“I would want my swimmers to break my records and this goes to show that the planned development stages we are undergoing are being done very well.

“Coaches are very much at the core of this development. We have a number of talented and qualified coaches who are doing an excellent job with the younger groups in the various clubs.

“Neptunes, in particular, work on the basis of a summer school where swimmers are later promoted to ability groups, continuing with their training throughout the season.

“Monique Mangion greatly helps the club’s top squad, while I am in technical charge of the Malta team which takes part in the FISEC Games, where most of these Under-17 swimmers taste international success for the first time.”

Close co-operation

All club coaches work in liaison with the national coach who has been instrumental in raising the standards of swimmers. The foremost example is that of Andrea Agius, the Sliema ASC lad who has dominated the breastroke events, followed closely by Daniel Galea.

Rizzo was very much satisfied with Agius. “He deserves credit for the excellent times in the 100 and 200 metres events,” she commented.

“He is a very hard-working young man and has a very positive attitude towards our sport. He be someone our younger swimmers should look up to.”

There was a note of caution from Rizzo when she spoke of our rate of improvement in relation to that of other countries.

“I believe progress in other countries is being achieved at a faster rate than ours,” Rizzo opined. “It is all down to lack of funding and sponsorships for our national level swimmers, despite the very good work the national coach is doing with the top group as they continue progressing.”

As for promoting the sport, Rizzo stressed: “We need to work hard and promote swimming to our young ones, starting from schools, attracting them to the sport and keeping them in it. We need a bigger pool of competitive swimmers taking part in our seasonal calendar. All this will result in higher standards when swimmers are selected from bigger groups.”

In the end, Rizzo hailed the vital contribution of the swimmers’ parents. “All the hard voluntary work being done by parents helping in the technical part, deserves our appreciation,” Rizzo said. “Without them very little would have been possible.”