Malta Paralympic Committee (MPC) today announced the team who will be competing at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. Team Malta will be represented by Maja Theuma in Para swimming, and Antonio Flores in Para athletics.
Maja Theuma (age 24) swims with Exiles SC and brings 6 years+ experience competing in the sport, having competed at local time trials and national championships, as well as major international competitions, including the Para Swimming European and World Championships. Maja competes in the ‘S6’ Para swimming class and has established national records in the freestyle (50m, 100m, 200m and 400m) and backstroke (50m and 100m) events. Maja will be racing in the 50m freestyle S6 event on Thursday 29 August. Maja chairs the MPC Para Athletes’ Council and has been an ambassador for Paralympic Sport through her engagement and awareness work.
Antonio Flores (age 34) runs with Zurrieq Wolves Athletics Club and is one of Malta’s longest-standing competitive Para athletes, with over 15 years+ experience in the sport and having represented Malta at major championships, both locally and on an international level, including the World Para Athletics Gran Prix events. This will be Antonio’s second Paralympic Games, following his debut in the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, where he competed in the ‘T-44’ class, before undergoing an amputation in 2017 following medical complications. Antonio will be competing in the 100m and 200m ‘T64’ class (single-leg amputee blade running event) on 1 and 7 September respectively.
Team Malta’s Chef de Mission for the Games and MPC Secretary General, Dr Julian Bajada conveyed MPC’s objectives for the Games, underlining that, “Our athletes, who will be competing via the IPC Universality Wild Card Programme, have shown maturity and readiness for these major Games. Our objective is to bring out our best possible performance and establish new personal bests across the events. If they retain full focus, the athletes know they have it in themselves to attain this goal. The athletes will take the best versions of themselves to Paris.”
Looking beyond the immediate results, Dr Bajada is also upbeat about the legacy impact of the Games, emphasising that: “The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games represent another pivotal moment for the local Paralympic movement. Between Tokyo 2020 and now, this has been the most active Malta Paralympic Committee to date.
We have worked with national sports associations, sports, clubs, coaches, educational institutions, partners and other key stakeholders, to ultimately see that more individuals with physical, hearing or visual impairments get involved in Para Sport. We have a record number of active Para athletes and Para sports that are available locally. More than ever, Paris 2024 can be a platform to entrench Para Sport into our sporting culture and normalise it in our society. We must put to bed any conceptions of the disability in sport sector as a charitable sector, to recognising sport for all as an integral element of our fundamental human rights.”
The team contingent will be completed by Coach Edward Caruana Dingli (Exiles SC), Team Doctor Dr. Danica Bonello Spiteri and candidate for the International Paralympic Committee Athletes’ Council elections, MPC Treasurer Vladyslava Kravchenko (two-time Paralympian who represented Malta in Para swimming at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020). The Games will be declared open at the Opening Ceremony on Wednesday 28 August, and end on Sunday 8 September.
The launch was hosted in partnership with Hudson, who are sponsoring the Malta Paralympic team for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games through its leading brand Nike. As main sponsor, Hudson will be providing the Malta Team with their officially sponsored Nike gear, kits and bags. As part of the road to Paris campaign, Hudson has launched a series of videos showcasing the strengths and unwavering perserverance of Malta’s Paralympians.
The videos expressed a message of strength and encouragement, truly showing that as Nike’s co-founder Bill Bowerman stated, “if you have a body, you are an athlete”.
Malta Paralympic Committee also thanked its stakeholders who have made the projects undertaken during the Tokyo 2020 to Paris 2024 cycle possible, including the Government of Malta (in particular, through the Ministry for Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector, and the Ministry for Education and Sport), Sport Malta, and its various project partners.
Read the Press Release in Maltese via this link:
Published by Malta Paralympic Committee
20 August 2024 17:00 CET
Comments