The Olympic-size swimming pool in Berlin has become an annual December venue for Maltese swimmers in their preparation for their main targets of the season.
As was the case in recent years, the last weekend of the year had several ASA and Neptunes WPSC swimmers taking part in this annual international event which attracts a number of overseas boys and girls, besides those from the host country, Germany.
Although our swimmers are still in their strength-building phase, and thus at an early stage of their preparation, the performances of most of them were good pointers of better things to come when competitions start early in spring.
National coach Andy Colbourn and Gail Rizzo, the latter in charge of the 18-strong Neptunes squad, described as encouraging the performances by their swimmers, some of whom exceeded expectations.
"We had 32 personal bests and managed a total of seven top three placings, one silver and six bronze medals," Rizzo said.
"This was a satisfactory number of medals when you consider that the level of this meet is high, especially in the age-group categories. In fact, some age-group times were faster than those in the Open Category.
"At the end of the three-day meet, I was very pleased with the team's performance, and this shows that all the hard work is paying off. I have no doubt that the swimmers are responding very well to what is being set for them in this preparatory period."
"I am looking forward to seeing them at the Easter Meet in March, as that is their next important competitive appointment," the Neptunes coach added.
As far as results were concerned, pride of place goes to Andrea N. Agius whose time of 1:17.85 for the 100 metres breaststroke smashed his own previous B age-group mark (for 12-13 year-olds) set six months ago at the National Championships at Tal-Qroqq, by 2.77 seconds.
IASIS's promising swimmer, Mark Sammut, who was part of the ASA squad in Berlin, won three bronze medals in the 50, 100 and 200 metres backstroke, with personal bests in the two and four-lap events of 1:08.03 and 2:26.41 respectively.
Still in the age-group events, Talisa Pace managed a 29.32 seconds in the 50m free, which was just shy of her category record, while Francesca Paolella, Melinda Sue Micallef, Maxine Scerri, Aprille Zammit, Niki Muscat, Robert Micallef, Quelin Zammit, Beppe Grech and Michael Millo, besides Andrea N. Agius and Mark Muscat, all came in for special mention by Rizzo.
In the Open category, Neil Agius covered the 200 free and 400 IM in an encouraging 2:02.22 and 4:55.23, both personal bests, while Daniel Galea also swam PBs in the 200 breast and 200 IM. Paul Herrera did 26.10 and 57.65 seconds in the one and two-lap freestyle races and Davina Mangion 2:14.10 and 4:43.58 in the 200 and 400 free.
According to Colbourn the Berlin meet was yet 'another encouragingly fruitful phase in the swimmers' build-up, with the season's highlight being the Annual Easter Meet.
"We now look forward to more hard work as the season gradually unfolds and hopefully we will have good results in competitions," he said.