Athletics inter-insulars to be scrapped?

Saturday 4th September 2010, 3:00PM BST.

Island captain Peter Irving

A NEW Channel Islands athletics open championships could replace the traditional inter-insular in future.

The idea is the brainchild of Andrew Winnie, Jersey’s development officer, and his opposite number in Guernsey, Dale Garland.

If the annual end-of-season track and field clashes are scrapped, next week’s Burton Trophy inter-insular athletics match could be the last of its kind.

Read the full story in the Jersey Evening Post.

Click here for subscription details.

Individual editions are also available online.

1
Bob Fleming

September 3, 2010 at 4:44 pm

It’s because there aren’t any senior athletes left in Jersey and the team can’t cope with competing in so many events on one day, hence splitting the events into 2 days of competition.

It’ll be a real shame if athletics becomes the first sport to not have an inter-insular any more.

Report abuse
2
Gary Grimshaw

September 7, 2010 at 4:16 pm

Not having the inter-insular proves yet again that Spartans have lost their way. They haven’t got the athletes to compete with Guernsey at a senior level and due to that are avoiding the competition.in other words surrendering the trophy for ever! Perhaps Jersey Spartans should look at what Guernsey is doing and realise we need to have a stronger coaching setup and refocus the club. The inter insular may seem to be of little importance to no locals but to local athletes it’s the one thing you want to win for your Island.

Report abuse
3
Bob Fleming

September 8, 2010 at 1:11 pm

This comment from Gary Grimshaw says it all really. He was from the era of Spartan Athletics when we competed in the Southern League with a Men’s team of between 15-20 County Standard Senior athletes. Now we have maybe 1 or 2.

Why the massive decline in numbers of senior athletes? I think it’s because the club and coaching set up became obsessed with Junior athletes. Every week during the Summer in the JEP (from about the mid 1990s) you would read about how brilliant our junior athletes were, but nothing was ever written about our Seniors, which I know never sat well with our Senior athletes of that time, as they were still performing well without any recognition.

Also, the juniors that had had their egos massaged by winning won lots of events and becoming media stars suddenly entered the world of Senior athletics and started to get hammered. This would consequently result in them leaving the sport as it was too tough for them to handle.

Report abuse