JERSEY have retained the Governor’s Cup after an excellent performance against Guernsey in the swimming inter-insular.
A challenging format saw Jersey narrowly beat Guernsey by 216 points to 204 in overall points, with the Caesareans laying claim to both the male and female categories.
Due to the prohibitive financial costs of inter-island travel, Guernsey elected not to travel to Jersey and “virtual” swims were organised in each islands’ pools over successive weekends.
The two Channel Island sides were presented with a race against the clock, rather than lining up in person, but the loss of the competitive atmosphere did not prevent records from tumbling.
A total of 14 meet records fell, nine of those new records set by Caesarean athletes.
The star of the show was 16-year-old Calligo Tigers swimmer Filip Nowacki.
The teenage juggernaut set three new records in the 100m medley, 100m breaststroke and 100m butterfly, after returning from his phenomenal performance for Team GB in the European Championships.
Two of those records had stood since 2007, the 100m breaststroke time was lowered by almost five seconds, a mammoth margin in the sport of swimming.
The longest standing record broken was by Jack Militis in the men’s 12-13yrs 100m backstroke, in 1min 04.64secs, to eclipse a time that had stood strong since the start of the millennium.
Elsewhere, Megan Hansford broke the female open 100m backstroke record.
Her time of 1min 04.52secs beat the previous record by three tenths of a second set a decade ago.
Isaac Thomson’s impressive time of 56.90secs in the men’s open 100m backstroke also broke a record from 2009 by nearly one-and-a-half seconds.
Ellie Grant earned herself a massive record in the female 12-13 100m backstroke event, smashing the previous best from 2016 by nearly two seconds.
In the female 14-15 100m breaststroke event, it was Hannah Sterry’s turn to write her name into the history books.
Her time of 1min 16.82secs was over half a second quicker than the previous record from 2018.
There was team success also, as the men’s open 200m medley relay team beat their own record from 2019 by nearly one and a half seconds with a time of 1min 46.79secs.
Team Jersey extended their thanks to KPMG Crown Dependencies for their long-standing support of competitive team swimming and aquatics development in Jersey.
Their valuable funding will also contribute to Team Jersey’s participation at the Island Games 2025 in Orkney.
Additional thanks went to the coaches, athletes, officials and volunteers for their continued dedication to the sport.
