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14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 OCTOBER 2021 NEWS THE sporting minnows of San Mari- no and Bermuda won medals at To- kyo. Iceland qualified for the World Cup. All over the world, the outli- ers of the global contest for human achievement manage to surprise the world with champions of their own. But for tiny Malta, an island-nation that often prides itself of its skilled human resource, sporting greatness eludes it. Like the fate of its national football team, which in the past suffered dis- honourable defeats at the hands of merciless European giants, Olympic success seems to mirror the island's lack of champion output. The few footballers that make it into Europe- an leagues, the Carmel Busuttils, the Michael Mifsuds, the André Schem- bris... those are few and far in be- tween, every generation producing just one star. Malta has gone 93 years waiting to clinch some form of Olympic acco- lade, and despite the island's drive for sporting excellence, the prospect of the Maltese flag to ever show up on an Olympic podium appears daunt- ing if not impossible. In this year's Tokyo games, Malta was represented by just six athletes who competed in athletics, badmin- ton, swimming, shooting and weight- lifting. It was a mix of very young and more experienced athletes. Swimmer Andrew Chetcuti was in his third participation, and shooter Eleanor Bezzina at her second; while it was a first for 16-year-old swimmer Sasha Gatt, sprinter Carla Scicluna, Mal- ta's first Olympic badminton player Matthew Abela and the first Maltese weightlifting participant Yasmin Zammit Stevens. Chetcuti finished second in the 100m freestyle heats but did not progress to the next round. Bezzina finished 26th in the 10m Air Pistol Competition, and then 17th and 41st out of 44 in the qualifying 25m Pis- tol events. Gatt finished sixth out of seven in the 400m freestyle heats, and third out of three in the 1,500m freestyle heats. Scicluna qualified to the first round for the 100m sprint, finishing eighth, while Abela, ranked globally at 33, lost 2-0 to the world's number 10. Zammit Stevens placed third in a group of four athletes and broke the national 105kg clean-and-jerk re- cord. Her coach, An impossible dream? Her coach, Jesmond Caruana, is al- so the president of the Malta Weight- lifting Association. Satisifed with her result, Caruana points out how diffi- cult it is for a European weightlifting athlete to make it to the Olympics, with only four Europeans are cho- sen per weight category. But he also admits being scep- tical about Mal- ta's chances of ever winning a medal for weightlifting at this level of the sport. "The way things stand, it is almost impossible for a Maltese ath- lete to train full-time professional- ly and within a professional setting," he said. "The best young Maltese tal- ents in weightlifting do quite well, as there is a level playing field at that age with all children being in school. But the older they grow, the more difficult it becomes for them to keep up with the pace, as almost no Mal- tese athletes become professionals." Zammit Stevens herself has had Minnows San Marino and Bermuda won medals at the Tokyo Olympics, something that keeps eluding Malta. Luke Vella tries to understand why Malta's medals bureau remains empty Will Malta ever make it to the Olympic podium? to make a huge financial sacri- fice and train full-time to contin- uously improve her performanc- es. And still it's not enough to be at par with the best athletes. "Italian weightlifters train pro- fessionally and live within the Olympic centre," Caruana said. "They are constantly supervised by a team of doctors, psycholo- gists, physiotherapists and nutri- tionists." Not even national investments like Malta's flexi-training scheme, where athletes train pro- fessionally in their sport for a num- ber of hours per week, appear to be helping. Caruana says that it is still nowhere near enough for athletes t o reach their top game. "The best way forward would be to follow the example of oth- er small nations and export our best talents abroad, where they could train as real professionals," Caruana said. "Yasmin has been taking part in training camps abroad but regretfully most plans were disturbed during the pan- demic." The Malta Olympic Commit- tee's director of sport Ivan Balzan says many fail to understand "the unbelievable personal sacrifices" of athletes, coaches, parents, but also sporting federations. "All this is done out of sheer passion and total dedication," Balzan said, who could however not hide his disappointment with the Tokyo results. "Although not sufficient, the commitment and dedication that athletes showed is not to be questioned." Clearly, winning a medal will Medals won by small states in Olympics Tokyo 2020 All data compiled by Kevin J. Azzopardi in 'The participation of small states at the Summer Olympic Games', Occasional Papers on Islands and Small States, 2021 Weight-lifting champion and national record- breaker Yasmin Zammit Stevens