Diary of the Games

Traveling to Sicily (Day 1)

For the IOW World Youth Island Games’ team of twenty four young athletes and eight adults, day one was a traveling one which began shortly after midnight on the Wightlink Ferry destined for Portsmouth and then Heathrow. Checking was meant to commence at 4 am and by 5 am the Alitalia crew strolled in to find the large group of athletes all dressed in black and yellow and four times as many other individuals from all corners of life, all waiting anxiously for their airline host.

Needless to say that the first leg of the journey to Milan departed relatively late which meant the IOW team rushed to make their next connection to Catalina with only minutes to spare. Half way through the final leg to Sicily the captain announced that there was not enough fuel to continue and a stop in Napoli (Naples) was imminent.

To ease the frustration the captain made several circles of the spectacular mountains and old city with the Vesuvius Volcano in perfect view. Finally several hours later the team arrived in Sicily and the organizers welcomed the tired team. Another hour bus ride to Syracuse and one by one the different teams of sailors, runners and swimmers were all dropped off to their respective hotels.

In Sicily, the largest Mediterranean island, the air temperature is a smooth 26 celcius and the sea is a refreshing 20 celcius .
All very happy to commence an exciting week of competition and discoveries.
Ciao bella

Day 2 - Tuesday May 23rd (to 2pm)

The official first day of the World Youth Island Games’ kicked off with the opening ceremony in the ancient Greek Theatre of Syracuse. All 17 participating islands paraded on a stage and down into the semi circle of the amphitheater.

Ten athletes from the IOW were chosen to parade and many painted their faces and waved flags in the mid day heat.

The president of Cojie official sponsor and organizer of the games, made a brief speech and two young champions from previous games lit the flame.

Day 3 Wednesday May 24th 2006 to 2pm

By day three it seem that everyone is settled in and new friendships with other island teams are emerging in all camps. The Swimmers and runners are staying in different hotels in Syracuse and the sailors are based just outside the capital of Palermo, generally a four hour journey North. Unfortunately in took eight hours for director Lee Matthews and the sailors when their coach broke down yesterday en route from Syracuse after the opening ceremony. News from the sailors will filter in separately from Palermo.

Today was a non-competition day and in the morning both the swimmers attended training session. The athletics team found shelter under a large tree near the 100m sprint line with loads of water available. As it turns out the temperature in Sicily is much milder than the previous week of 35-39 celcius. By lunchtime temperature were in the high twenties which is quite comforting considering it can be very hot here. Speaking of lunch time the food here is sumptuous, sadly though most athletes feast on the usual burger-sausage, fries, pasta and bread when there is a spectacular spread of native and exotic dishes available.

Both the swimmers and runners are right on the sea and the hotels have swimming pools.
For both teams competition will commence tomorrow morning for three hours. There are no finals and results will be heat declared. Depending on the wind racing for the sailors begins tomorrow as well.
Ciao

Day 4 Thursday, May 25th 2006

"Amazing, tough, friendly, intimidating, excellent, fun, great experience" are a few of the words expressed by the athletes regarding the games and their first day of competition.

Nerves are high and Josh Gilbey was the first to taste the competition with the shot put event. In the Athletics team most athletes are in the youngest age bracket of three years and facing up great challenge. Nevertheless they produced some great results on this first day with numerous personal best performances. Josh through his longest put in the first throw and placed 11th overall.

Next came the girls and boys 1500 metres and Lucy Holdom and Aiya Abe finished 8th and 12th respectively. In the boys Daniel Cox placed 11th and Dan Poingdestre was 13th. Three girls Mollie Occomore, Chloe Woodhouse and Sarah Grace ran the 100m dash and Sarah had the best performance finishing in 5th overall. Three boys and girls entered the 400m with Faith Norster, Sarah Grace, Brogan Percy, Tom Marsland, James Skykes and Jaryd Robinson. Sarah was especially pleased with her time and placing 5th overall for the girls. There was also two 4X100m relay events and the girls placed 11th while the boys unfortunately dropped the baton.

A few miles away in the Citadella de Sport, the 4 swimmers also began their first day of competition. Louis splashed in first with a 50m backstroke and was very pleased to finish 9th out of 22 swimmers. Again all the swimmers are the youngest in their category though this did not intimidate them. Mikael Popov was next and swum a PB time in the 100 m breaststroke, placing 10th.

Both Louisa in lane 8 and Daisy Grundy in lane 1 swum together in the 200m free in PB times and finished 15th and 19th respectively out of 25 swimmers. Sam Tinson- Wood swum the 200m free in PB time and placed 13th out of 24. Coach Anne Collins managed to enter the four swimmers in a mix relay which they swum against all boys and still came ahead of the all- boy Jersey team.

Confirmed Results from sailing and athletics will be sent when released.

Friday May 26th, 2006

The atheltes were the first again to start the competition with only four competing today. First was Ethan Newbury and Thomas Colwill in the 100mts sprint. Both boys were not so pleased with their times with conditions not favorable. Next was Brogan Percy who race in 800 mts and although she was hoping for a medal she still was pleased with her performance. James Sykes also participated in the 800 mts and was satisfied with his time. The whole athletics team was present to cheer on their team mates and sometimes other delegations. Tomorrow the whole team will compete in their final day of competition.

In the 50 mts swimming pool all four swimmers competed and achieved numerous PB, notably with Daisy Grundy who shaved 17 sec off her personal best and placed in the top 10. Team mate Louisa also did an impressive PB in the 100 mts free style in a time of 1.06.99 Mikael Popov and Sam Tinson Wood swam side by side in the 200 IM and Mikael s time of 2.30 flat was a good PB. Both boys swam the 100 free style and Sam went under the minute in a time of 59.40 All swimmers left the pool with big grins on their face.

Yesterday the boys sailors competed on their first day and Jonathan Evans had an excellent start thought conditions began to deteriorate and he along with team mates Carl Whitewood had to abandon their raicing. Today all four sailors will be racing in lighter conditions.

Last Day - Saturday May 27th 2006

On the Saturday morning all the athletes packed their bags leaving their respective hotels for the last day of competition.

Suzanne Clifton was first on the track with the high jump event. Suzanne was very brave to come back into competition after suffering a food allergy a few days before. She was very close to a PB jump. Next was the 200m sprint with Faith Norster and Brogan Percy who finished 16th and 11th respectively. The three boys entered in the 200m were Tom Marsland, Jaryd Robinson and Joshua Gilbey.

At the end of the day both the girls and boys competed in the 4X400 relay and finished 7th and 8th. During the three days of competition it was a blessing to have temperatures in the mid 20s when they had been in the mid 30s the week before. The IOW team placed 11th overall in Athletics.

In the swimming arena all four swimmers competed on their last day of competition. Louisa Critchley placed 7th in the 50 free in a PB time and Mikael Popov also finished 7th in the 200m breaststroke which were the two best finishing performance for the Isle of Wight¹s team.

Sam Tinson -Wood achieved a big 4 seconds PB in the 400m free and so did Daisy Grundy in the 200m back. To finish the day the two Wight swimmers made up a Medley relay team with two girls from Malta. Louisa, Daisy , Sam and Mikael will all be eligible to compete next year in Corsica.

All the athletes from the 17 delegations who competed in Syracuse rode the four hour journey to the capital of Palermo, passing on the way through Catania where the famous volcano Mount Etna sits 3,400m high.

Then the athletes met up with their team mates from other sports in a large sporting hall where everyone was shuttled together to the closing ceremony venue on the beach. By 9pm food was served and the awards were given to all the islands with Isle of Wight in 14th place which was quite good considering we competed in only three sports out of a possible 10.

By 1am the team was dropped off in a luxurious hotel across Piazza Vigliena where there is an extraordinary photo exhibit by famous aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand.

By 11 am the next day the Isle of Wight team took off on Alitalia, saying good bye to the Mediterranean island of Sicily.

Reports and photographs provided by Nicolas Popov