Competitive water sports only start being recorded in Malta in the British period. No doubt in a small, almost sub-tropical island, people naturally took to the water from the earliest of times. Toni Bajjada, the legend­ary long-distance swimmer, carved an indelible name in our history for his marathon spying activities by sea during the Great Siege of 1565.

Swimmers ready for the plunge in Sliema, 1920s

The origins of organised water sports in Malta does not seem to have yet been researched in any depth. My hunch is that the locals mimicked the British Services, as happened in most other competitive sports, eventually achieving reasonably high standards.

Printed on the back of a 1928 postcard listing Turu Rizzo’s local and world swimming records.

In the 1920s, Malta actually claimed world records in water sports. Turu Rizzo (1894-1961), the mythi­cal swimmer, ended being more than a mere household name.

The C Company, Gordon Highlanders, winners of the water polo league, 1924

Now a vanity alarm: the swimmer Edoardo Magri, later judge, my maternal uncle, was the very first Maltese to represent Malta, part of a water polo team, in the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928. I still remember the pride that crept into his voice recounting his tussles with Johnny Weissmuller, five-times Olympic gold medallist, world champion swimmer and, later, Tarzan, swoon-guaranteed darling of Hollywood.

No. 65 Company, RGA, winners of the 1910 Malta swimming championships

Water sports, Malta, 1930s. Note the off-the-shoulder male bathing costume on the left

Water polo final between HMS London and HMS Cardiff, August 17, 1929

One noticeable feature in water sports photographs remains the absence of women. They probably frequented and frolicked in the sea as much as men did but they almost never appear in photo­graphs.

Water threading endurance, 1920s

No early competitive water sports images ever featured ladies and Maltese women in bathing costumes in or near the sea remain a rarity. 

Diving in Marsamxett Harbour, 1930s

Was it prudery or the fear of body shaming? Not a whiff of two-piece or bikini.

The selection of photos gives a good insight into the evolution of male bathing costume fashions - including the off-the-shoulder fad.

The author (front) with his mother and sisters in Dwejra (Inland Sea), Gozo

All images from the author’s collections.

Three women swimming, Malta, 1927.

Swimming athletes in the MSA league, 1927