Twelve girls who form part of the U12 National Synchronised Swimming Team have achieved excellent results over the weekend in an international competition, known as ‘Little Frogs at Slavia’, which was held in Bratislava, Slovakia on the 4^th of November 2017. This year’s edition of the competition consisted of more than 150 athletes from 7 countries: Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Romania, Poland and Malta.

The girls competed on an individual basis in three categories according to their age. Girls aged 8 and younger competed in Frogs I, 10 years old and younger in Frogs II and 12 years old and younger in the category called Frogs III.

Ema Cassar placed 1st in the Frogs I category, achieving the first ever gold medal for Malta in this age group. Patricia Borg placed fourth in the Frogs II category, while her team mates Zea Montford and Emma Calleja reached places eight and nine respectively.

The Maltese girls who competed in the Frogs III category also did very well, the majority of which ranked within the first 20 out of 54 competing athletes. Davida Bonnano, who will also perform in the U13 squad at the end of November, ranked best in 7th place, only one point behind to 3^rd place.

All twelve Maltese girls later performed their combination routine, which is a 4-minute dance to music. Since the girls are so young, the routine was not judged, however received much appraise from all judges, coaches and audience present.

The U12 National Team was selected in May 2017 through a local competition, where the athletes competed against each other and the top 12 were selected to train together for up to 8 hours per week in preparation for the competition in Bratislava. Their sessions consisted of numerous hours in the pool with synchronised swimming coaches Anja Kuehn, Hannah Preca Trapani and Biljana Zivotic, as well as gymnastics and swimming classes with respective specialised coaches.

The Maltese team was made up of Thea Blake, Tara Bonnici Peresso, Tereza Cassar, Nicole Felice Tomic, Emily Ruggier, Maya Tonna and Sophie Zammit, besides Cassar, Borg, Montford, Calleja and Bonnano.

Synchronised swimming has been introduced as a competitive sport in Malta in 2010 by Saho Harada, a Japanese Olympic medallist who dreamt to inspire young Maltese athletes to take up this sport. Her dream was the foundation for today’s Synchronized Swimming Academy, which is under the wing of Sport Malta. Classes are held daily at the Tal-Qroqq National Pool Complex for both recreational and competitive swimmers.

For more information on synchronised swimming, kindly contact us on synchromalta@gmail.com

Today SportMalta employees participated in a half hour walk as part of the National Pink October campaign. SportMalta, in line with its vision to promote a healthy lifestyle through physical activity and sport, organized this event for all Head Office employees. Wearing pink t-shirts displaying the Be Active campaign logo the employees enjoyed a brisk walk close to the Head Office. SportMalta is proud to have contributed to this campaign to raise funds and awareness about breast cancer prevention, research and equipment to help improve the quality of life for cancer patients.

After months of preparation SportMalta’s programme #OnTheMove finally kicked of with a bang. Over 5000 students are taking part in a number of different sport and physical activities.

Remember that you can still book for your place as applications remain open throughout the whole year. Book Now!

These are some photos from the first sessions.

SportMalta announces that Dr. Chris Bonett has been appointed as the new Acting CEO. Dr. Bonett’s appointment as Acting CEO comes as part of a planned transition and restructuring strategy. As the new Acting CEO, Dr. Bonett has the responsibility for leading the overall direction of the entity.

He is a lawyer by profession graduating from The University of Malta in 2007. Dr. Bonett pursued his studies at the De Montfort University of Leicester and obtained a Master’s degree specialising in Sports Law in 2013.

Dr. Bonett enjoys a love for sport at all levels. He is originally a handball player and was one of the founders of La Salle Handball Club in 1998, and was in the Under 17 National Team from 1997-98 and in the Senior National Team from 2000 to 2002. Dr. Bonett also played volleyball and football at grassroots level.

In 2010, he entered sports administration as Head of Legal of the Malta Football Association and was elected twice as vice president of the MFA in 2013 and 2016.

Whilst at the MFA he served for two years in the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body, and was part of the disciplinary panel for EURO 2016. His involvement with UEFA led to his resignation from the MFA in December 2016 to take up the full-time post of UEFA Integrity Officer at the UEFA HQ in Nyon, Switzerland. In August 2017, he returned to Malta and started serving as Senior Consultant to the new Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Sport, the Hon. Dr. Clifton Grima.

Dr. Bonett is the author of the new legislation on the commercialisation of sports facilities and led the MFA reform on the status and transfer of players and the introduction of the local financial fair-play regulations.

He is married to Dr Maxilene Bonett and has a son, Matteo, aged 3.

The European Week of Sport 2017 in Pictures…More events planned throughout the week.

Stay tuned!

More photos CLICK HERE

SportMalta, MaltCo and Lakes Fitness Studios have teamed up together to organize the 3rd Edition of the MaltCo Indoor Rowing Challenge as part of the European Week of Sport 2017 This year the Event will be held at St George’s Square Valletta

All participants must fill in the application form underneath. This will enable officials to determine race times and precise age and race format categories. The form must be submitted to either SportMalta or Lakes Fitness studios before or on the day of the event.   Failure to do so will result in non-participation.

Lightweights 75 kilos and under for men and 61.5 kilos and under for women must weigh at the venue before they race.

DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION

Cospicua was one of the centres for this year’s European Week of Sport activity as one of its traditional docks became a venue of a canoe polo tournament organised by the canoe polo association in collaboration with SportMalta as part of the #BeActive campaign.

Canoe polo, also known as Kayak polo, is one of the competitive disciplines of canoeing, known simply as “polo” by its aficionados. Polo combines canoeing and ball handling skills with a contact team game, where tactics and positional play are as important as the speed and fitness of the individual athletes.

The game requires excellent teamwork and promotes both general canoeing skills and a range of other techniques unique to the sport. Each team has five players on the pitch (and up to three substitutes), who compete to score in their opponents goal which is suspended two metres above the water. The ball can be thrown by hand, or flicked with the paddle to pass between players and shoot at the goal.

The canoes are specifically designed for polo and are faster and lighter than typical kayaks which give them fantastic manoeuvrability. The blades of a polo paddle have thick rounded edges to prevent injury. Paddles are also very lightweight and designed with both pulling power and ball control in mind. Nose and tail boat bumpers, body protection, helmets and face-guards are all compulsory.

The players fought a very interesting battle and showed also excellent skills for the curiosity of the host people in Cospicua and a number of tourists who passed by the dock.

SportMalta employees gave spectators gadgets and explained in depth the #BeActive campaign.  After the event all participants were presented with a commemorative medal and a t-shirt that in itself promoted the campaign.

SportMalta invites the public to join in the various activities being organised during The European Week of Sports that is currently being celebrated in all member states across Europe. The European Week of Sport is a Europe-wide initiative of the European Commission, created to help address the issue of physical inactivity by encouraging the widest possible audience to be active. It inspires to make physical activity, as simple as it is, to become part of their lives.

SportMalta as the national coordinator of the European Week of Sport in Malta has prepared an intense programme for all to enjoy. You can access the full programme from Here

The official opening of the European Week of Sport was marked by a flagship event held at Birzebbuga with the picturesque Pretty Bay serving as backdrop for beach games and fun activities.  The general public and participants from #On The Move Programmes were invited to take active part in the event.

Sports associations were invited and encouraged to join the event, whereby in collaboration with SportMalta, they had the opportunity to give exposure and promote various sports disciplines by allowing those attending to take a try at discovering different physical skills.

Sports activities mainly beach soccer, beach tennis, speed Minton, aikido, weightlifting, tug of war and beach handball attracted participants of all ages and abilities.  These were spread along the whole beach area with Zumba and fitness taking centre stage.

Throughout the whole event, the public and participants, were presented with t-shirts and promotional material supporting the #Be Active Campaign.