Sport / Island Games round-up: Magnificent seven medals for Shetland on terrific Tuesday
A SENSATIONAL seven medals were secured by team Shetland on a memorable Tuesday of Island Games action.
Four silver and three bronze medals have been added to the medal table, taking Shetland’s tally to 11 after three days of competition.
The blues’ bowlers exhibited their top credentials with three medals at the Kirkwall bowling green, while cyclist Grant Ferguson surged to a superb silver medal in the men’s mountain bike criterium.
Young athletes Abbie Taylor and Eva Thompson punched well above their weight to clinch silver and bronze in the women’s long jump, with archer Billy Finnie adding to his individual bronze by sharing a silver with Katie MacFarlane in the mixed recurve event.
All of that was interspersed with brilliant performances at the track and pool, giving Shetland’s vocal support plenty to shout about on Tuesday.
Most of the medal action came at the bowling green, where men’s doubles pair Alex Elphinstone and Gibbie Pottinger narrowly lost a winner-takes-all clash with Orkney which meant they instead secured silver medals.
Women’s pairs team Anne Barron and Caroline Smith finished in third to take bronze, while consummate athlete Andy Walterson also snatched bronze after a three-way tie on points in the men’s singles round-robin.
The men’s mountain bike criterium may seem like an unlikely place for Shetland to succeed, but the blues certainly stood a chance with Ferguson – a member of team GB at the 2016 Olympics in Rio – on the starting line.
Both he and team-mate Cameron Read completed the challenging course in punishing heat, with Ferguson sealing silver in 46:29.
Next came the long jump, with two of team Shetland’s youngest athletes – Taylor and Thompson – stepping up to compete.
Taylor recorded a score of 5.32m after three jumps, putting her second in the table, which is where she would stay until the end of the run to secure a silver medal.
Fifteen-year-old Thompson was not awed by the competition at her first games, and delivered a huge 5.19m jump at the last to snatch a bronze medal.
Before that event only two Shetland women had ever jumped over 5m in the Island Games, which has now doubled to four after their remarkable medal-winning performances.
And after Finnie’s bronze success on Monday, he went one better with team-mate MacFarlane in winning silver at the mixed recurve head-to-head event on Tuesday.
The pair saw off the Falkland Islands’ Louise Clarke and William Chater 6-2 in the quarter-finals, before beating Menorca’s team by the same scoreline in the semis.
Though they lost the final to the team from Jersey, their performance was enough to add silver to Shetland’s success on Tuesday.
Remarkably Finnie just missed out on another medal on Tuesday too – finishing fourth in the men’s 720 recurve, with team-mate Benjamin Hamer sixth.
SHETLAND’S swimmers more than held their own against one of the toughest fields in Island Games history again on Tuesday.
More than 12 swimmers took to the pool in the morning heats, with personal bests tumbling as team Shetland continued to do themselves proud.
There were evening finals for Julian Okroj in the men’s 400m individual medley and for Emmie Hutchison in the women’s 50m butterfly after their morning performance, with Okroj sixth in a time of 4:52.22.
He would go onto improve on that time in the final, finishing fifth in 4:51.97.
Hutchison also secured fifth in the 50m butterfly final, in a time of 28.42.
The Shetland women’s 4 x 50m medley relay team of Hutchison, Jasmin Smith, Rhona Anderson and Katie Bain performed brilliantly on Tuesday morning to finish third in their heat in a time of 2:02.37.
They returned for the evening session and improved on their time, finishing in 2:01.17, but narrowly missed out on a medal position.
Caoilinn Robinson also finished seventh in the women’s 1,500m freestyle in a time of 18:48.
Wednesday will be a busy day for the blues’ swimmers once again, with plenty of more action in the morning heats.
KIAN Redman and Katie Dinwoodie will contest Wednesday night’s 200m men’s and women’s finals after qualifying through on Tuesday.
The pair came through their heats in the pouring rain in the morning, and then their semi-finals in the early evening sun, to make the finals.
Sophie Grant and Bobby Laurenson also qualified for the semi-finals, but unfortunately missed out on the finals.
Layla Todd finished sixth in the women’s 1,500m race, with team-mate Alina Murray 10th, crossing the line in 4:42.
WOMEN’S doubles pairs Aimee Keith and Amy Sineath, and Chloe Hitchin and Shona Mackay, are through to Wednesday’s badminton quarter-finals.
Hitchin and Mackay have come through two rounds to get to the last eight, while Keith and Sineath had a bye in the last 32 before beating a pair from Bermuda to make the quarter-finals.
For Keith and Sineath the top seeds from the Isle of Man lie in wait on Wednesday afternoon, while it will be an inter-county clash with Orkney for Hitchin and Mackay.
Thomas Calder and Luca Russell are also into the quarter-finals of the men’s doubles, and will face the pair from Greenland for a place in the last four.
BOTH the men’s and women’s football teams will play on Thursday to decide their final placing.
The men’s team needed to beat Jersey on Tuesday night to progress to the semi-finals, but following a fast start found themselves 2-0 down after two goals in quick succession for the group leaders.
The blues battled back into the game though, and a Lorne McNiven halved the deficit before Jersey were reduced to ten men following a high tackle on John Allan.
However Shetland themselves had a man sent off early in the second half when defender Stuart Copland brought down a Jersey attacker, and was deemed to be the last man.
Shetland poured forward with little reward before a sensational Sam Maver free-kick – following a trademark weaving run by Calvin Leask – dragged them back to 2-2.
That left Shetland one goal away from qualification, but despite a series of corners they were unable to find the winning goal.
Earlier in the day the women’s team rounded off their group campaign with a 2-0 defeat to 2023 gold medallists Bermuda, in a game where they thoroughly held their own.
That followed defeat to Jersey on Monday, and a hugely creditable 2-2 draw against the Isle of Wight in their first match back at the games on Sunday.
The women’s team will play Hitra in Rendall in a 7th/8th placing match at 12pm.
The Shetland men’s team will play Orkney in Stromness at 7pm for 5th/6th place in something of a warm-up for the Milne Cup on 26 July.
SHETLAND’S sailors continue to push up the table, with Darren Forrest ninth in the International Laser Class Association (ILCA) 7 category after three days of races.
Team-mate Adrian Wishart is 18th, while in the ILCA 6 category Michael Tait is eighth and Willum Leask 10th.
In the team event Shetland are fifth, behind Isle of Wight, Ynys Môn, Guernsey and Menorca.
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