The Malta Canoe Federation held their annual gala dinner and awards night on the 15th of December bringing to a close an eventful year. Before honouring those athletes who have competed both at home and overseas, national coach Craig Wightman and president Dr Julian Mamo presented one star, two star and canoe safety test certificates to various members who had taken part in the personal award and proficiency programme in 2006.
Commenting that it was only in following a recogized course could non-canoeists learn the skills and safety aspects of the sport thus avoiding causing problems for other canoeists and the emergency services, coach Wightman and Dr Mamo went on to present new coach Kler Azzopardi
with her level one coaching award certificate.
Kicking off the awards proper, sprinter Chris Camilleri’s successes in Hungary and the world championships in Szeged earned him one of the top spots as male athlete of the year, piping marathon paddler Gerald DeGatano’s consistent and solid performance in the Perception and Nookie
Kayaks league for one of the top spots. Nicki Borg Costanzi carried off the woman’s athlete of the year award with a unanimous vote with an equally consistant performance in the marathon seasons racing. Picking up
the award for Best Progress was cadet racer Luca Pace for whom a fast racing career becons, while federation treasurer and father Anton Pace was voted Official of the Year, beating off both PRO Sandro Spina and the President. Craig Wightman beat Adele Muscat, MCAST’s canoe coach and new coach Kler Azzopardi for Coach of the Year, while the redoubtable Joe Borg unanimously carried off the trophy for Member of the Year.
Members were also asked to vote on the event of the year. Although in the past this has been consistently won by the Manoel Island Race, this years most enjoyable event of the year was the summer fund raising barbecue, the award being collected by organiser Joe Cremona. Finally honouring the newest members of the canoeing community, members voted cadet paddler Matthew Schembri novice of the year. By far the most waited for trophy every year has been the ‘wally’, where a toy duck is presented to the most bizarre or embarrassing incident of the year. Although
nobody really wants to receive this, members are always eager to present this in good fun. This year was no exception with Peter Zammit being the unlucky recipient for his home alone kayak incident. As Mr Zammit was
unable to collect his award this was accepted on his behalf by runner up Mr Robert Pullicino for his ‘things that go bump in the night’ scenario.
A final award was presented to Dr Julian Mamo PhD, the federations current president of a copy of the Malta Book of Records and Firsts. This in recognition of his serving not only as an enthusiastic member, as a committee member and competitor during the sports sixteen years since
its establishment on a windy beach by a small gathering of enthusiastic paddlers that has grown and prospered over the years. Dr Mamo was mentioned in the book for his record breaking circumnavigation of Malta with Alex Rizzo and Peter Zammit, in fact no less than 6 current members
were included for various achievements.
Thanking members for coming and supporting the federation Dr Mamo emphasized the difficult times ahead for the federation in reaching an agreeable resolution to it’s own premises issues and the need to forge ahead consolidating the competitive successes and rapid expansion in a number
of disciplines including Dr Mamo’s own superb efforts to establish canoe polo as a new local form of canoe sport.
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