Michelle Muscat has accused Neil Agius of faking his record-breaking swim from Sicily to Malta.
Agius, a former Olympic athlete, completed the gruelling 100-kilometre swim this morning from Pozzallo to Sliema – in aid of anti-plastic pollution campaign Wave of Change – six hours ahead of schedule.
“As the foremost expert on long-distance swimming in Malta, and veteran of several marathon swims, I can’t help but be a little bit suspicious of Neil Agius’s effort,” the wife of former PM Joseph Muscat told Bis-Serjetà.
“100 kilometres in just over 28 hours? Come off it. And he isn’t even wearing a bright pink wetsuit, which is absolutely essential for this sort of thing. I bet he is wearing flippers, though. He could have put them on in between starting and finishing so they wouldn’t be seen on camera. Not that I’ve ever done that, of course.”
Muscat questioned why Agius did not have One News and TVM follow him the whole way.
“They’re arguably the two most unbiased and truthful news sources in Malta, and would never distort the facts to make it seem like he swam a lot further than he did. So what was he trying to hide?” she asked.
The former ‘first lady’ also cast doubt on Agius’s chosen cause.
“Plastic? Really? I mean, it’s not cancer is it? And in any case, whenever I encounter bits of plastic while swimming, I ate them, because I have a special stomach that can digest plastic. What does ‘raising awareness’ do?
“And where’s the fanfare? Where’s the exclusive post-swim gala dinner? To a professional swimmer and charity fundraiser like me, this is all a bit fishy.”
