Island Games - Thursday Round Up

Eriskay teenager Heather Mackinnon was in tears on the Gutavallen track but there was no sadness. The tears were a mixture of joy, shock and pure delight as she leapt to a stunning gold medal in the triple jump final.

A massive 11.06 leap on her first jump of the night could not be surpassed by any of the other eight finalists in their six attempts each and Heather - to her own surprise - was on top of the podium.

But while she was in shock those that know her best weren’t so surprised as Heather is hugely talented, has the technique all in place to put together jumps of this distance and on the night it all went according to plan.

Her parents and brother and sister were all track side to see her crowning moment and it made for quite the emotional scene as the family all squeezed Heather tightly with a gold medal draped around her neck.

Kathryn Offer, who is moving abroad next week and could have been making her final Island Games swim, defended her 50m back stroke gold medal she won in Jersey two years ago. And she smashed her own Island Games record in the process.

Her remarkable swim took her Gotland tally to three - two golds and a bronze - as the WIIGA swimming machine continue to hoover up medals faster than a Dyson on sawdust.

In the mountain biking the MacPhee girls were in action and just as they did on Tuesday they topped the podium with a sibling one-two. Kerry took gold, Kirsty took silver and they took team gold home to WIIGA HQ.

It was another stunning performance from the South Uist superstars who have now won every mountain biking medal they have raced for over two consecutive Island Games.

Our women footballers continued their stunning form with a third straight victory. This time it was Greenland who fell to the relentless Hebridean heroines. Greenland did have the cheek to go a goal up before Mary ‘she scores when she wants’ Macleod had quite enough of that. She levelled things up before fellow Nicolson Institute pupil Shana Macphail grabbed the winner for our girls.

In the pool there were numerous PB’s as Lucie Doig, Isla Budge, Matthew Hanlon and Katie Murray all using their swims at the Island Games as the springboard to propel themselves like Hebridean torpedos through the Swedish waters and blow seconds off their personal best swims.

Our men footballers contiuned their redemption and recovery from the bowels of despair and the toilet bowl following a severe bout of food poisoning with a second win on the bounce.

The lads drew 1-1 with Hitra in a match which they again dominated but failed to convert possession and sights of goal into goals. After falling behind Alasdair ‘Wally’ Maciver levelled for the Western Isles and the match went to penalty kicks.

Gordon Mackenzie was making his WIIGA debut and just rewards to a player who travelled to Jersey and was unused and had also been on the bench for all three matches prior to this in Gotland.

And it proved to be the scriptwriters dream as Gordy proved to be the hero with a stop in the shoot-out to clinch victory for WIIGA.

The weather on Gotland today was blustery to say the least. Although the breeze was warm it was blowy with gusts peaking at 30 to 40mph which made things difficult in all sports. Not least on the golf course where our smartly dressed foursome were in action.

Once again the best scorecsrd turned in on the day had David Black’s signature on it as he shot an 87. High score and higher than he would normally shoot but everyone had a higher score on the day where it was almost unplayable at times.

Geddes, Rowlands and Macleod all carded 91.