Eight gold medals, three silver and three bronze are a tremendous return after the first round of events… but the numbers don’t tell half the story, as the public connected in a big way with the Games – and their own team. Large, enthusiastic crowds watching outdoor events such as athletics, football, triathlon, and volleyball have fed a genuine feel-good factor which followed an excellent opening ceremony on Saturday evening at Howard Davis Park.
The day dawned brightly and although the half-marathon was full of tremendous sporting stories, it was across the other side of the Island that Jersey’s medal ball started rolling. Fittingly, it was one of Jersey’s most determined sporting characters that did it, with cyclist Kim Ashton, a previous winner of the JEP’s Bill Custard Award for outstanding endeavour at an Island Games, striking gold in the women’s time trial. A team gold, shared with Clare Treharne and Laura Chillingworth, is sure to follow.
The next medals also came from familiar happy hunting grounds, the shooting ranges, as pistol and clay target pairs both triumphed, Nickki Holmes and Mary Norman in the 10m air pistol and Mark Andrews and Iain Barette in the English skeet open.
The stream turned into a flood with the start of the triathlon on the Waterfront, that test of endurance being passed with flying colours by an under-the-weather but still determined Dan Halksworth who romped away with the title, which was added to by both men’s and women’s teams taking the number one spot.
Back at the FB Fields, high jumper Jason Fox surprised even himself in just how well he rose to the occasion to provide Jersey’s first athletics gold.
Tip-top silvers, too, from the men’s time trial team cyclists, triple jumper Kamela Monks and triathlete Jo Gorrord, backed up by three bronzes from triple jumper Roseanna Hill and triathletes Tom Perchard and Samantha Lee. All something to shout about, for sure.
But perhaps it was the way a crowd approaching a thousand got behind the ladies’ football team to lift them to a vital victory over Greenland that will be the abiding memory for many of Day One . . . the day that the Island community embraced sport in a big way – and Team Jersey in particular.
