JERSEY’S young Island Games gymnastics team returned from their Orkney 2025 campaign having learned lessons and gained confidence, following a week of intense competition against extremely skilled opponents.
After an eight-year hiatus from the Games, gymnasts from across all competing islands will have been brimming with excitement for the opportunity to represent their nation again.
Team manager Julia Falle spoke ahead of the Games, stating it was a “massive shame” gymnastics had been missing from the Games for so long, and that her 12-strong team were “young, but confident they could hold their own against some good-level competition.”
The men’s team was made up of Jayden Barry, Cosimo Dhami-Hounsome, Jonathan Dupoy, Harry Lapthorn-Nears, Thomas Penn and Benjamin Williams, while the women’s team consisted of Saffron Butler, Emily Davy, Tilly Le Boutillier, Amalie Manton, Bethany Munn and Olivia Simey.
Both men’s and women’s teams spent the week competing at the Stromness Academy in Orkney.
The SET individual events kicked off the week with the floor first, where Jonathan Dupoy landed the highest men’s placing with 14th (8.400) and Saffron Butler completed a top-ten finish tied in tenth position (11.900).
The vault followed, where Dupoy again starred, sealing an excellent seventh- place finish (9.475), while Butler again was the highest Jersey women’s finisher in 22nd (10.500).
The high bar competition saw Benjamin Williams perform well to finish 11th (6.450), while Bethany Munn claimed 15th place in the women’s asymmetric bars (11.100).
Williams was Jersey’s top performer on the parallel bars (6.750) in an event which saw the exceptional Karthik Adapa of the Cayman Islands win his first of many golds.
Saffron Butler was again the highest female finisher in the beam, placing 23rd (10.250).
The rings event saw Dupoy finish well in 12th place (8.300), backed up with an 11th place finish (8.700) in the pommel.
The team events were a combination of the highest scores throughout the day, which saw the men’s gold medal sealed by the superb Faroe Islands team, with Jersey finishing third. The women’s team gold was also snatched up by Faroe Islands, leaving Jersey’s women in seventh.
Day two of competition took place on the Thursday with the FIG individual qualifying events. The finals followed on the Friday.
The floor event started the day, with Dupoy and Williams qualifying for the final. Dupoy would finish fifth (10.900) in the final, with Williams taking eighth (9.300).
Olivia Simey placed highest in the women’s bracket in 17th, but none of the six were able to reach the final.
In the vault, Jayden Barry and Harry Lapthorn-Nears performed excellently to qualify for the final, finishing seventh and eighth respectively.
Saffron Butler and Bethany Munn were unlucky to miss out on the women’s final, finishing 13th and 16th respectively in the qualifying stage.
Dupoy and Williams were successful again in qualifying for the high bar final, where Dupoy finished sixth (8.950) and Williams eighth (8.000).
Saffron Butler and Tilly Le Boutillier showed promise in the women’s asymmetric bars qualifying, with Butler finishing 22nd (6.650) and Le Boutillier in 23rd (6.150).
The parallel bars were next, where Williams and Dupoy again made the final. Williams, on this occasion, finishing sixth (9.750) and Dupoy eighth (9.350).
Bethany Munn was the highest female finisher in the beam in 21st (10.200), with Olivia Simey just behind in 22nd (10.150).
The rings event saw the excellent Harry Lapthorn-Nears achieve his highest finish of the Games, just missing out on a medal with a fourth-place finish (10.200) in the final, with Jonathan Dupoy finishing eighth (8.350).
Dupoy would secure a fifth-place finish in yet another final, this time in the pommel (7.700), with Ben Williams just behind him in sixth (7.450).
The highest men’s overall individual finisher was Ben Williams (58.650) in 11th, with Dupoy one back in 12th (57.000). Cosimo Dhami-Hounsome took 16th (46.450), Harry Lapthorn-Nears 17th (44.350), Jayden Barry 18th (43.300) and Thomas Penn 19th (42.100).
The women’s overall individual final placings saw Saffron Butler place in 21st (37.800), Olivia Simey 23rd (36.600), Tilly Le Boutillier 32nd (34.200), Bethany Munn 34th (33.950), Amalie Manton 35th (33.500) and Emily Davy in 37th (31.550).
The entire Jersey gymnastics team are in their teenage years, with the two youngest competitors, Jayden Barry and Amalie Manton, both only 13 years old.
Team manager Julia Falle has about as much Island Games gymnastics experience as you can get, after being involved in the Games since 1993, with the sport only making its first appearance in 1989.
Leading into Orkney, preparations had gone well, and 17-year-old Olivia Simey was quoted saying the whole team was “working really hard and completely focused on the week.”
Making her Games debut, Simey expressed how proud she was to represent her Island. She said: “After 13 years of training, I really feel like I’ve achieved my goal.”
Regent Gymnastics Club continues to grow from strength to strength and this crop of young athletes will have returned from Orkney with memories to last a lifetime, and invaluable lessons learned for their own future development.
