Sirens ASC 15 year old swimmer Sasha Gatt has claimed the ‘Atlas Youth Athlete of the month’ award for the month of August 2020. Gatt was chosen as the winner of the August award following her outstanding results obtained both locally and internationally.

The young athlete started swimming at the relatively young age of seven and has achieved significant success ever since. She won her first medal at the age of eight, at the Maltese National Championships, followed by another medal the following year, where she participated in her first international competition at the Kaos V.Trofeo in Sicily. Sasha was selected to participate in the COJI Games also held in Sicily in 2018, winning three bronze medals.

Her first National Short Course Record, at the age of thirteen, was the 800m freestyle at the Opera Swim Classics Short Course Meet which was held on the 26th October 2018 in Wuppertal, Germany with a time of 09.21:90.

The month of August saw her reach even higher levels as she broke the Age Group D Record for 200m Freestyle clocking a time of 2:09,72 during the Slovenian Grand Prix held at the Olympic Pool in Ravne, Slovenia. The previous record of 2:09,74 had been set by Francesca Falzon Young in July 2016.

During the same competition of the 2nd August 2020, Sasha Gatt also broke the National Record and Age Group D Record for the 1500m Freestyle when she established the time of 17:26,96. Previously the Age Group record was vacant whilst the National Record was of 17:57,71 and was held by Sasha herself since November 2019.

Gatt’s impressive momentum in August was again confirmed during the second Swimming Festival held at the National Pool Complex in Gżira on the 6th and 9th August 2020, where she swam the 200m Freestyle in an Age Group D time of 02:08,37, improving the time she had previously established in the Slovenian Grand Prix.

This was the eighth award being awarded to a local youth athlete in the series of this joint initiative by Atlas Insurance and the Malta Sports Journalists Association to recognize the efforts by young sports athletes and thus encouraging them to continue to train harder in their respective sports disciplines.

The previous winners were:

Rachela Pace (Athletics) – January 2020, Dejan Grech (Pool) – February 2020, Tenishia Thornton (Weightlifting) – March 2020, Jake Vella (Swimming) – April 2020, Thomas Borg (Para swimming) – May 2020, Matthew Magro (Tenpin bowling) and Richard Shulthies (Sailing).

Each month, the Malta Sports Journalists Association and Atlas Insurance encourage athletes under the age of 21 and their respective associations and federations to submit nominations for this award. Nominations can be submitted via email on [email protected].

The trophy for the August 2020 Atlas Youth Athlete of the month together with the sports apparel voucher combined with this award was presented to Sasha Gatt by Matthew von Brockdroff Chief Executive Officer at Atlas Insurance. Sandro Micallef and Lorraine Cunnigham President and General Secretary respectively of the Malta Sports Journalists Association were also in attendance.