Medals galore – but Jersey still third

Friday 3rd July 2009, 11:33AM BST.

Sophie Twinam wins gold in the 400m hurdles

THE medals are still pouring in, but the Jersey team’s hopes of defending their Island Games title are fading fast as the Faroe Islands sail ahead.

The women’s athletics team added another gold and silver to their medal haul this morning with success in the relay events.

Gemma Dawkins, Hazel Le Cornu, Katie Silva and Sophie Twinam finished the 4x400m relay in 3.54.97 to give them gold, ahead of the Isle of Man and Shetlands.

And Gemma Dawkins, Hazel Le Cornu, Jenna Murphy and Sophie Twinam took silver in the 4x100m event.

It brings the total number of golds won by Jersey to 21, just one behind the Isle of Man and nine behind the Faroe Islands. Jersey also has 30 silvers and 13 bronze.

The athletics team had already produced an evening of stunning performances yesterday. Sophie Twinam ran a thriller to win a gold medal in the 400m hurdles, beating the winner from Rhodes 2007 in a nail-biting finish; Gemma Dawkins and Kathryn Rothwell both won their second gold medals, in the 200m and the discus respectively; and there was a bronze for Hazel Le Cornu, also in the 400m hurdles.

There were also more sensational performances at the swimming, as JJ Gallichan finished 0.3 seconds behind the Faroes world championship swimmer Pal Joensen in the 400m freestyle – knocking an unbelievable ten seconds off his PB – and Katie Speller won a gold medal in the 100m IM, swimming three seconds quicker than the rest of the pack.

The footballers scored another sensational result, maintaining their unbeaten run with a 2-0 win over Muratti rivals Guernsey in the semi-final of this tournament, while the golfers suffered a difficult day on the course – early medal hope Gavin O’Neill dropped from joint first to fourth after finishing up four over par, although Olivia Jordan-Higgins, despite not scoring her best, still lies in silver medal position.

Mary Norman had a stunning day at the shooting, adding another gold and a silver medal to her collection, in the 50m prone smallbore rifle and the 10m air pistol respectively, while archer Michael Coward scored silver in the men’s recurve event.

The ladies’ volleyball players topped a disappointing campaign with another defeat, although Jersey’s men’s basketball players won their first match of the week, beating Aland 75-39, which will see them contending for seventh place in today’s play-off.

Ladies badminton duo Kim Ashton and Lyndsey Woodward played a cracking quarter-final against the Isle of Man to win 21-9, 21-11, giving them the bronze. But they couldn’t hold on in the semi-final, eventually losing to Guernsey in three sets.

In the individual table tennis tournament, Nicola Duke is through to the semi-finals after beating Greenland’s Karliinannguaq Lundblad 3-1 in the quarters, while Craig Gascoyne is also in the semis following a 3-0 defeat of Gotland’s Johan Mattsson.

Sailing suffered another difficult day, with Martin Speller finishing 15th overall and Jeff Speller coming in 18th overall in the Laser standard, but the windsurfing team still lies in second place, with Jersey’s Michael Millar on course for a fourth place finish in the individual event.

Jersey’s tennis mixed doubles pair Kirsten McArthur and Andrew Evans are guaranteed a bronze medal after winning the quarter-finals against Menorca’s Roser Pons and Joan Salord 6-3, 6-4.

1
Bob Fleming

July 3, 2009 at 3:10 pm

Faroes World Championship swimmer?? Why on earth are they at the Island Games? What can they possibly get out of it other than winning multiple medals that don’t mean much, if anything to them, whilst simulatenously depriving amateur athletes the chance of winning a medal which will probably be the highlight of their sporting lives?

Also, seeing as he is a swimmer, it also serves to distort the medal table, seeing as swimming accounts for such a high proportion of medals available at the Games.

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2
paul

July 3, 2009 at 5:22 pm

I see your point entirly and i agree with you in princapal but would you be complaining if jersey were in the same situation with a world class athleat compeeting and dominating at a perticular sport? You also fail to mention Dale Garland, a commomwelth games standard athlet running for gurnsey, isn’t it excactly the same thing but i don’t see you complaining about that! At the end of the day theese are the “friendly games” and if we had a world standard athlet would we think twice about entering them? I think not!

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3
Bob Fleming

July 3, 2009 at 10:59 pm

Yes, I feel exactly the same about athletes like Dale Garland, I just didn’t feel the need to mention more than one name to illustrate my point. We also have athletes like Jamie Stevenson (shot putter and discus thrower) and Lauren Therin (javelin and discus thrower) who aren’t in Aland and I’m glad about that, as they are in a class above the Island Games and would win their events without breaking sweat.

As you say, the Islands Games were branded initially as the “Friendly Games”, but this is definitely still not the case, what with Islands drafting in “professional” athletes to give their medal counts a boost. To illustrate the point further, I saw an interview on Channel TV the other night with Guernsey runner Lee Merrien, who had just won the 5000 metres at a canter. He was so matter-of-fact to the point of boredom about the whole experience that it just made me question why he was there, when other athletes in the background were slogging their guts out and were a lap behind. He’s a Commonwealth Games standard runner and doesn’t belong in the Island Games, regardless of what he might say about being “proud” to represent his island. It reminds me of somebody I play cricket with who celebrates with disproportionate enthusiasm when he bowls young children out, after he’s scared them witless with his pace. He should be bowling at them, just as these sports people should be competing in the Island Games.

If you’re wondering if I have any authority to comment about the Islands Games, I have been going to them since 1993 and have seen them change drastically over the years, unfortunately in my opinion, not for the better.

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