Island games: second swimming gold for Strachan and bronze for Harper

Shetland’s women swimmers made their remarkable island games even better tonight when Andrea Strachan won a second gold medal to add to last night’s and Amy Harper, who had already won a silver, secured a bronze.

Andrea beat Guernsey’s rising star, 14-year-old Kristina Neves, in the final of the 200m individual medley in 2.20.18, a big improvement on her qualifying time this morning of 2.22.95, the fastest time in the heats. Andrea was also fifth in the final of the 200m breaststroke in 2.42.19.

Amy was third in the 800m freestyle, the longest event for the women swimmers, in 8.57.24. The event was won by Neves in 8.47.98. Amy also gained fifth place in the 50m butterfly in 30.13

In other events, the Shetland men’s 4x50m freestyle relay team of Felix Gifford, Callum MacGregor, Craig Nicolson and Jake Swanson came just a second outside the medals in a very exciting race, beating the Shetland record in the process. They were fourth behind Faroe, Guernsey and Jersey.

Felix Gifford came fifth in the men’s 200m freestyle in 1.58.13 and fifth in the 100m butterfly in 58.97.

In archery, the compound shooters secured the team silver medal tonight, with Billy Finnie, Steven Gardiner, Martin Krusche, Ryan Leith and Sara Leith finishing behind gold medallists Faroe and ahead of Jersey in third place.

The recurve team of Keith Lobban, Suzanne Malcolmson, Dylan Murphy, David Williamson and Rosaleen Williamson came eighth in the team event, with Faroe again taking gold, Guernsey silver and Åland bronze.

On the athletics track Emma Leask, who won gold in the 800m two years ago in Åland, narrowly missed out on a medal in the women’s 400m tonight. She was just 0.13 seconds behind third placed Camilla Olsson from Gotland in a race won by Harriet Pryke of the Isle of Man. The silver medallist was Melissa Clarke of Bermuda.