Nine golds flooded into take the hosts’ total to an impressive 33 after four days of high-octane action, 14 more than second-placed Isle of Man.
Golds came on the track, in the pool, and the archery, fullbore rifle and pistol ranges. Most poignant of all will have been the Le Cheminant brothers, Andrew and Barry, winning gold and silver, respectively, in the individual Queen’s fullbore rifle competition, a title their late father, David Le Cheminant, won in 1987. Barry actually shot using his father’s old rifle.
Bruce Horwood and Fabien Amy also collected gold for Jersey in the Queen’s team shoot, while youngster George Winstanley took the top gong in the 25-metre rapid fire pistol.
Jersey’s fans in the pool at Les Quennevais savoured captain Tom Gallichan’s 200m freestyle victory, then took the roof off with two superb relay victories, one of them producing a Games record in the 4 x 100m medley of 3 min 42.91 sec.
Jersey archery celebrated two golds at the Jersey Rugby Club, with Lucy O’Sullivan and Mark Renouf winning respective ladies’ compound and men’s recurve head-to-head competitions.
Steeplechaser Dan Romeril kept up Jersey’s record of a gold every night on the track with a storming 3,000m run, which was celebrated in great fashion, not least by his mother.
Yet all the considerable noise created by those nine golds will probably not have been matched by the roar from Springfield when Jersey’s ladies reached the football semi-finals with a 2-1 victory over Hitra. Again attracting a crowd of around a thousand, the ladies have given their sport a huge boost and they deserve all the support that can be shoe-horned into Rozel Rovers’ Le Couvent ground in St Lawrence at 1 pm this afternoon.
Rhys Hidro thrilled the huge home crowd at People’s Park with a gutsy recovery to silver after losing his chain in this spectacular mountain bike challenge.
Jersey’s golfers remain in contention for medals and, in particular, the ladies, with two rounds remaining at La Moye and Royal Jersey. Reigning Games men’s champion Gavin O’Neill is joint top of the individual scoreboard as the sporting temperature rises along with the thermometer.
And the heat is set to stay on as St Helier becomes the main focus, with the town criterium cycle races at 1 pm (women) and 6 pm (men) today
There’s also a great all-Jersey clash scheduled on the tennis courts at Grands Vaux, with top seed Scott Clayton facing team-mate Stuart Parker (No 6) in the men’s semi-finals at 9 am.
A few hours later Jersey bid for their first-ever beach volleyball medal when Bero Bobus and Ruben Vieira take on Gotland at 12.30 at the Weighbridge.
