Personal information | |
---|---|
Full name | Neil Agius |
National team | ![]() |
Born | 6 June 1986 |
Height | 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) |
Weight | 65 kg (143 lb) |
Sport | |
Sport | Swimming |
Strokes | Freestyle |
Coach | Dave Haller [1] |
Neil Agius (born 6 June 1986) is a Maltese swimmer, former Olympian and world-record holder who specializes in long-distance freestyle events. [2]
Agius qualified for the men's 400 m freestyle at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, by receiving a Universality place from FINA. [1] He broke a Maltese record and posted his entry time of 4:21.24 from the Easter International Swim Meet in Msida. [3] [4] As part of his preparations for the Games, Agius attended a 6-week training camp under the guidance of Dave Heller, who coached for the Cardiff Swimming Club. [1] On the first day of the Games, Agius placed forty-sixth from the morning's prelims. Swimming in heat one, he rounded out a field of seven swimmers to last place with a slowest time of 4:22.14, less than a tenth of a second off his record. [5] [6]
Neil held three Maltese records each in the 400, 800, and 1500 m freestyle until one of them was broken by Edward Caruana Dingli in 2011. [1]
In August 2021, he was honoured with the creation of a 266 kg bronze statue in his likeness, by artist Austin Camilleri. [7]
Outside of his Olympic career, Agius promotes awareness for environmental issues via marathon swims. In 2018 he swam 70 km around Malta in 22 hours raising awareness for marine plastic. [8] The following year he swam around Gozo in ten hours, supporting the same cause. [9]
In 2020, Agius became the second person to ever swim from Sicily to Malta. He accomplished the feat in a record-breaking time of 28:27:27. [10]
On 30 June 2021, Agius might have established the new world record for the longest continuous unassisted open water swim - swimming 125.7 km from Linosa to Xlendi - from a small islet off Sicily to Gozo, Malta. This is still under review by the Marathon Swimmers Federation.[ needs update? ] [11] In September 2024, Agius broke his own record with a 140km non-stop swim, a new world record. [12]