Sport / Island Games team announced
SHETLAND will send a total of 87 competitors and coaches to this year’s NatWest International Island Games.
The isles will compete in nine sports at the biennial event in Gibraltar in July.
They are athletics, badminton, cycling, sailing, shooting, squash, swimming, table tennis and triathlon.
On Team Shetland’s books the year are runner Seumas Mackay, shooter John Magnus Laurenson and swimmer Felix Gifford, who all won gold at the last Island Games two years ago.
Bronze medallists Faye Cox, Jasmin Smith and Emmie Hutchison will also be heading to Gibraltar.
Both the athletics and swimming teams feature a total of 17 competitors and coaches each.
The smallest teams are cycling and sailing, which have two entrants each.
The full team list can be found here.
This year’s Island Games will open on 6 July, with around 1,800 competitors from 22 islands due to take part.
Local engineering firm Malakoff is the team sponsor, a role it has held since 2013, and its funds have gone towards paying travel and accommodation costs.
Vice chair of Shetland Island Games Association Lesley Hutchison said: “We’re pleased to be able to announce the team list and we’ll have a strong team with a mix of youth and experience again.
“We’re delighted to have the support of Malakoff Limited again as our team sponsor and it’s a great boost for the team to know that we have such a long established local firm behind us. We’re looking forward to a spectacular week of sport in Gibraltar.”
Malakoff’s operations and contracts manager Claire Christey said the company was “delighted to back the team again for the fourth consecutive time, helping Shetland’s best sportsmen and women to attend the games.”
A main reason why the team list is reduced in numbers this year is that football will not be held at the 2019 Island Games.
This is because Gibraltar does not have enough suitable pitches.
A replacement Inter Games Football Tournament will be held in Anglesey in June, with the Shetland team due to take part, but it will not form an official part of the Island Games.
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