Neil Muscat – SAC’s Swimming Legend
While the last articles showcased the success of two Sixth-Form Uppers in their sports career, it is now time for first-year Science student: Neil Muscat, to share his experience on swimming.
When first asked about his choice of sport, Neil Muscat’s face clearly lit up on admitting that he didn’t quite view this career as a choice, as much as he considers it to be an automatic response to his passion for swimming. In fact, Muscat has been training professionally for the past 10 years, specializing in 3 main backstroke long-course race categories: the 50m, 100m and 200m races. He has been training with Neptunes Club from the tender age of seven and has recently made it to the top national swimming squad, also referred to as National Team A.
Swimming legend Neil Muscat, points out that swimming is quite a difficult and delicate sport in terms of the training and the recovery needed between sessions. A vital aspect of swimming is endurance and holistic muscle strength. In order to ensure this standard physical fitness and to maintain a constant performance in both sprints and races, Muscat confessed that he trains 10 times weekly for a period which varies from 1.5 hours to 2 hours from one session to another. Our science first-year explains that these training sessions include: 2 gym sessions, during which they focus on different muscle groups (mainly back and core) and also 8 swimming sessions consisting of 4 km of varying sets of swimming techniques with different intervals, allowing them to train for both short course (25m sprints) and long course (50m races and over) cycles.
Just like all previous athletes, Neil stresses on the importance of a healthy balanced diet, avoiding junk food; increasing carbohydrate intake during the week of races and; taking something light but energy-releasing such as pasta, up to 3 hours before the actual competition. However, the most striking aspect of Muscat’s training is his psychological preparation and rituals which help him to visualise his performance before going out into the arena to compete. When asked about this aspect of his training, he explains how his nerves affect him during races and in order to combat this, music plays an important role in keeping him focused:
During a week of races, my headphones are 24/7 by my side and I keep listening to music and watching motivational videos and movies, up until the very last minute when I’m called up to step out into the racing area – music is an asset to me which helps me maintain my concentration and composure before, during and after the race.
Our talented Aloysian swimmer can boast of quite a varied and interesting Sports CV, regarding both local and international experience. Locally, Muscat is currently competing in the 16/17 category - a category he has the chance of competing in for another year before moving on to the National Open Category where he’ll be competing against adults of all ages. Here, he has managed to get a record of 3/13 and he has also managed to move up from National Team B to National Team A - a great accomplishment for Muscat, as this, has opened up more opportunities for him to compete abroad for free.
When asked about his international experiences abroad, Neil Muscat’s answer was quite unique as embarassed, he admits to having forgotten most of the places that swimming gave him the chance to go to, not as a result of poor memory, but more as an automatic consequence of having been talented and determined enough to go abroad quite often, on different competitions and trainings. Some of the most recent places he has been to include: Germany, Portugal, Luxembourg, Qatar and San Marino. Less than a month ago in Berlin, a city which has seen Muscat consistently winning medals for 5 consecutive years, this swimmer competed in the Open-Age Swimming Category Races, managing to get his grasp on 2 bronze medals, without extreme difficulty.
Yet Neil’s favourite experience thus far, is his participation in the 2014 Qatar World Championships - an experience he describes as legendary. He explains how the whole organistation, place, performances and atmosphere had put him in the picture of the real swimming world abroad, and inspired him to persevere to reach out to similar prestigious experiences.
In fact, on closing our interview with this Aloysian talent, Neil Muscat seems to have already grounded himself to an even brighter future. As fed and motivated by his Qatar experience, he explains how now he is determined on striving harder than ever to improve his performance enough, to be able to compete in the Small Nations Games next year as well as the 2016 & 2020 Olympic Games. Acknowledging the fact that in order to follow his dreams the way he intends to, will present him with several sacrifices, his final comments were quite confident:
Training swimming on a professional level is not easy – it requires a lot of determination, perseverance and commitment – your social and academic life would have to suffer every now and then, but this is a sacrifice I’m willing to do. The end result will be worth it I’m sure.
Compelled by his inspirational determination, we, as The Voice, would like to extend Neil Muscat’s final comments to all of our Aloysian readers and invite you to never give up on your dreams, no matter how hard and impossible they seem to be, because if you are willing to get somewhere, no matter how bad things are along the way, you will reach the final destination and you would know it was all worth it!
Jacqueline Grech Licari
