News / Gold for Seumas in men’s 800m on day three
YOUNG athlete Seumas Mackay struck gold for Team Shetland at the NatWest Island Games in Gotland on Tuesday – while there were two more medals for the swimmers too.
Seumas ran a Shetland record time of 1.53.32 in the men’s 800 metres to secure his first ever Island Games medal. He finished more than a second ahead of the Cayman Islands’ Tahj Lewis and Gibraltar’s Cameron Payas.
He also competes in heat one of the 1,500 metres on Wednesday afternoon, as well as forming part of Shetland’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams.
Meanwhile, Felix Gifford added a silver medal in the men’s 400m individual medley in the pool with a time of 2:04.16, having won gold and silver on Monday. He came fifth in the 200m freestyle event with a time of 1:55.73.
And teammate Emmie Hutchison clinched bronze in the women’s 50m butterfly – her time of 28.67 seconds just 0.01 of a second behind Faroese silver medallist Var Erlingsdottir Eidesgaard.
Emmie and her fellow swimmers Katie Bain, Kayla Manson and Jasmin Smith narrowly missed out on bronze in the 4x50m medley relay, finishing 0.17 seconds behind Guernsey’s quartet.
It means Team Shetland has so far won three gold, two silver and two bronze medals – leaving the blues in tenth place in the overall medal table out of 23 islands taking part.
Back at the athletics, Leigh Nicolson finished seventh out of 15 in the women’s shot put with a throw of 9.66 metres, with team mate Kirsty Laurenson three places further back having thrown 9.00 metres.
The footballers’ medal hopes were ended after a 2-1 defeat by Aland, with a well-taken late penalty from captain Leighton Flaws proving no more than a consolation. The blues will have one final match on Thursday to determine their overall tournament placing.
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