Medal Haul at Jeux des Iles in Sicily
Day 1: After an interesting check-in to accommodation that was less than the two star that was advertised, George Burke started the Jersey team with the hammer. There were some tense moments with the Italian approach to health and safety – the absence of the safety horn meant that one of the officials had to dive for cover when the Maltese competitor threw the hammer very wide and took out the adjacent lap bell. George bagged our very first medal with bronze in 42.97m and a personal best for that hammer weight.
Next up was Antoine Chesnay in the 100m. Antoine was in heat 4 of the 100m against some stiff competition. Unfortunately, he did not make it to the final, but achieved a PB of 11.5.
Evan Campbell carried on for Jersey in the shot put competition, while on the track Olivia Allbut came second in her 400m heat with a result of 58.87 secs. It was a tense wait for the second female heat to see if Olivia had a place on the podium, as the placings were on times for both heats. However, Jersey finished the morning in triumph with both Oliva and Evan achieving silver medals with Evan’s shot result of 13.66m.
Day 2: The second day started as a evening session from 4pm with Lucy Woodward in the HJ. She had a shaky start failing at 1.35m initially but finished at 1.45m, disappointed with her performance but gaining third place and a bronze medal nevertheless. Olivia Allbut was on the track in the 400mH and achieved gold with a result of 65.62. Olivia said she was delighted to finally win a gold medal and a seasons best performance in 400mH. Antoine Chesnay’s performance in the 200m was solid, especially as he was up against very strong Martinique athletes. This little Island had brought a squad of 120 athletes and were highly accomplished sprinters. Antoine narrowly missed out on a place in the final but gained a new PB of 23.58, a huge improvement from his previous best of 24.2. Lucy Hunt’s very first international performance showed her running in the 800m, with a very cleverly run race, keeping some speed for a strong finish and a silver medal.
Evan Campbell and George Burke performed well in the discus. Evan won the competition with a new PB of 44.89m. George was a late entry and performed well enough to make it through to the final and finished with a throw of 34.22m. There was stiff competition from the Maltese competitor in the womens LJ. She jumped consistently over 5.50m and proved challenging for Lucy Woodward who finished in 3rd place with a jump of 5.24m.
Day 3: So at 4pm on day 3 in the women’s javelin, Amelia Shenton and Lucy Woodward dominated the field from the start. Both throwing consistently over their 6 throws. Amelia won gold with an amazing season’s best of 30.92m, a massive achievement as she is recovering from a niggling back problem. Lucy edged closer to Amelia over the first few throws, and there was little between them by throw 4 but Lucy settled for a silver and a very respectable throw of 29.84m
Meanwhile on the men’s HJ, Evan Campbell again pulled out an amazing performance, with a spectacular jump of 1.97m. Easily gaining a gold medal after all the other competitors had long dropped out and after a season beset by injury preventing him from training. Evan also gained a huge PB from an original of 1.89m and a qualification for both English Schools and the Island Games in Gibraltar next year.
Jack Lowery continued the mens field events in the javelin. He threw well enough to get through to the final, but with only 7 in the competition so did the other athletes. In the second round Jack pulled it out of the bag in his last throw and gained a gold with a throw of 46.47m.
The final event was the men’s relay. The women had to pull out due to injury. It was an unusual relay (100m x 200m x 300m x 400m) the order of competitors was Evan, George, Jack and Antoine. They were up against very tough competition and it was the Malta team who eventually took gold with our boys bravely battling on to last place.
Our medal tally for the comp was 5 gold, 4 silvers and 3 bronze between a team of 8 athletes.
