10 minute read
Over a Coffee
Over A Coffee With Gerald Grech
By James Vella Clark
GERALD GRECH is a senior lecturer at the University of Malta’s Junior College where he has been lecturing Marketing for the past 22 years. But Gerald also happens to be an accomplished Maltese runner having represented Malta at the Youth Olympics, the University Games, Small Nations Games, and the European Team Championships. Today he is also President of Libertas Malta Athletics Club.
After achieving a series of prestigious results, Gerald underwent an Achilles tendon surgery in 2017 followed by nine months of intensive rehab before starting to run again. “I believe that my stoic approach to life and my selfdisciplined character helped get through this negative patch,” he confesses in this interview.
When Gerald is not lecturing or training, you will most probably find him travelling, hiking, learning more about psychology, philosophy, languages, and gastronomy.
You are a protagonist in Malta’s athletic scene. How did it all start?
At age 10, I recall attending Sports Day at St. Aloysius College where I attended my secondary school and 6th form years to watch my cousin compete. That was when I just fell in love with running. I kept practising athletics at school, but it was only when I was 15 that I decided to take it more seriously. I joined Libertas and started competing whilst being coached by my uncle Emy Azzopardi thanks to whom I won a number of national junior and senior titles in the long sprint events namely the 200 metres and 400 metres.
What made you shift to longer distance running?
In 1995, I met Ivan Rozhnov at the Small Nations Games in Luxembourg who became and still is my coach. Under his direction we first shifted to the middle-distance events, namely the 800m and 1500m in which I registered some of the fastest all-time Maltese performances. After 2004 I started road running with 5km races and half marathons and longer distances on the track. Eventually in 2013, I also debuted in the mountain and trail running scene taking part in major World Mountain Running Championships. Today I am back to my middle-distance track and road races.
What would you list amongst your most important personal achievements?
1995-1998 National Junior and Senior Champion titles in 200m and 400m; 1998 - 2004 Running my best times ever on the track clocking 1’54”76 in the 800m in year 2000), clocking 4’01”02 in the 1500m in 2004); the 3000m in 8:42’43 in 2004. The latter results are still ranked in the top 10 all-time Maltese performances on the respective distances. Between 2004 and 2005 I was Road Running League Champion and national track champion on 3000m and 5000m. In 2011 I was the first Maltese runner and 2nd overall in the Malta International Half Marathon, in 2019 and 2020 I came 2nd overall in the Malta Trail League and Xterra Gozo 21k and in 2021 I achieved a national record for M45 category on 1500m with a time of 4’31’15.
Describe your typical training week ?
For many years, my 100km a week schedule consisted of daily runs and two main highintensity workouts and double sessions four days a week. But following the Achilles tendon surgery and after intensive rehab, I switched to a cross-training regime of 5 weekly runs, bike sessions on the road, gym workouts and recovery sea swims.
What inspires you most?
Mountain scenery, open green spaces, turquoise blue seas, and resilient, critical thinking humans are the things that inspire me the most.
How do you tackle your training from a mental perspective? What are the
things that you think of when you are running?
In sport, mindset is everything and so it is in running. Competitive training requires a lot of mental self-discipline to keep up the hours of regular training. When I run, I focus on the running itself to reach an optimal experience of flow where running becomes a meditative experience.
A few years back you started promoting mountain running and today you are also hosting your annual event. Tell us more about this?
Mountain running is an established worldwide sport and a discipline of athletics with events of varying distances and altitudes from short to medium uphill and downhill mountain races to long-distance trail running across distances that range from 40km to 100km and more at over 2000m elevations. In 2013 the first National Mountain Running Championships were held – an event which this year saw its 10th edition - a countryside route from Mġarr up through Binġemma and ending in Kunċizzjoni on the outskirts of Rabat covering a distance of 5.6km with an elevation climb of 150 metres. Team Malta has since then been regularly participating in major World and European Mountain running championships.
What are your future projects?
One of my near future projects involves Libertas Malta Athletics Club which together with a newly elected committee, we want to strengthen and establish as one of the top running clubs on the island. This year I was also elected on the council of Athletics Malta where I have committed to contribute my experience for the future development of athletics in Malta. However I am also determined to try and set some new national records on middle-distance events in the Masters categories.
SOME QUICK-FIRE QUESTIONS
Favourite food: Thai Curry Favourite drink: Green Tea Favourite spot in Malta: Għajn Tuffieħa Beach Summer or Winter? Summer Most memorable race: The 2014 World Mountain Running Championship in Massa Carrara, Italy running 11km uphill in a white marble quarry!
A disappointing moment/main running career Regret:
My main regret in my competitive running career was not breaking 4 mins on 1500m, especially when I knew I was prepared on several occasions to run at least 3’55. It was probably more of a mental barrier. Your favourite trait about yourself: Perseverance What would you like to be remembered for most: Longevity in competitive sport!
CULTURE AND ARTS
Phygital… What Is That?
By Sandro Debono PhD Museology, Art History and Curatorial Practice
Let’s go straight to the point. Linguistically, the word phygital is a combination of the words “physical” and “digital” to signify the ever-growing experiential crossreferencing and amalgamation of these two worlds. In other words, the term refers to the ways and means how these two realms—physical and digital—have melted into each other and hence increasingly difficult to inhabit them separately. The term is not new. It has been coined way back in 2013 by Momentum, an Australian branding and marketing company, but has gained traction in recent times particularly in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic.
So far so good. Phygital would refer to the dialectic, interface, overlap, and contamination between physical and digital. But how would the two combine? To what extent, in what form, and what type of interface would be the case for the phygital museum experience? Would the physical be the dominant element albeit having a comfortable overlap with digital? Or would the phygital be primarily digital with a physical overlap?
I would like to propose five possible scenarios that might inform our reply to these legitimate questions. These are not to be read and understood as siloed categories but more akin to bearings or what we might perhaps define as the phygital museum scale against which to measure phygital museum experiences. Indeed, five phygital scenarios that can serve the purpose of compass bearings towards which museums can navigate or to use as a yardstick to understand better where they stand.
Scenario 1. Physical with a token of digital
This scenario refers to a physical museum space with a digital presence. Museums that classify within this scenario are usually small to medium-sized museums with a ‘token’ online presence providing general information that serves the purpose of promoting the experience within the physical museum space. Museums with superficial digital campaigns, token websites and interpretative content that is one and the same as that available in the physical space irrespective of whether it is used for the physical or the digital can be associated with this scenario.
Scenario 2 . Physical with digital as an extension
This scenario would refer to a physical museum experience extended into the digital whereby the character and content of each are practically one and the same. A good example of this category would refer to museums with virtual tours that are, to all intents and purposes, an extension of the physical experience. With virtual tours the physical visit is replicated warts and all into the digital. It is but an online twin of the physical experience but relatively restrained by comparison given its reliance on camera viewpoints.
Scenario 3. Digital as a pointer to the physical
This scenario would refer to the digital as a pointer to the physical museum experience. In this case, the character of the digital content is different from but also complementary to the museum’s physical experience. This scenario shows the digital complementing the physicality of the museum experience, serving to subtly promote content within the museum’s physical space. A good example of this scenario is the Getty Museum Challenge, now also a publication that invited the museum public at home to engage with content that is located within the physical museum space.
Scenario 4. Parallel and cross-referenced existence of physical and digital
This scenario refers to the equilibrium between digital and physical with each experience being potentially autonomous albeit complementary to each other. Transmedia thinking, to which museums are increasingly becoming attracted to, would fall squarely within this scenario. The museum experiences that can be classified within this scenario would be those dispersed over multiple platforms, which can also be experienced individually or collectively as one overarching cross-media experience. The multi-platform museum idea is currently being explored by the Australian Centre of the Moving Image but there aren’t many more museums to cite that are seriously considering this phygital experience.
Scenario 5. Digital with a token of Physical
This scenario refers to a fully-fledged digital experience with a token physical presence that would concern material culture or a museum display, but which could be taken to extremes so as to refer to the physical location of the hardware. This predominantly digital scenario, which still concerns only a very small number of museums, is the one that has come out largely unscathed by the Covid-19 debacle. One of the very few museums that would fall within this category would be The Museum of Portable Sound, which is also a fully accredited ICOM member.
These five scenarios would come with a list of caveats of which I choose to list three. First, there is no ideal scenario to consider.
The phygital museum scale merely serves the purpose of helping museums understand much more the scope and purpose of the digital in relation to the physical. There may well be circumstances where the digital is not necessary or possible at all given technical problems such as low internet coverage. It may also be the case that museums willingly hop from one scenario to the other as digital literacy keeps increasing consistently.
Secondly, the ideal mix between digital and physical remains subjectively pertinent to the specific museum and shall depend upon the specific context within which a given museum relates to. There is a potentially strong bond between museums and publics that is entirely within the remit of the museum to define and sustain. Relevance also concerns understanding the phygital as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Third, it may well be the case that some museums will favour an approach at the intersection between two scenarios, acknowledging the objectives of one whilst straddling those of the other. It may also be the case that some of the experiences that fall within one scenario might also be repurposed or reused for another.
Last but not least, let’s not forget that every time we look up google maps to find our way, check restaurant reviews online before deciding where to have dinner with friends and colleagues or share our thoughts or reactions on social media we are interacting between digital and physical. Indeed, we are already phygital.
From the blog publication The Humanist Museum (Medium.com)
