Andrea bags more gold and silver in Bermuda

Team Shetland swimmer Andrea Strachan smashed her own island games 100m breaststroke record to win her second gold in Bermuda, then promptly added a silver in the 50m freestyle.

Her latest fabulous showing means Andrea now has two golds and two silvers for the week.

She and men’s swimmer Felix Gifford, who is still hoping for one more gold on Thursday night, have won eight of the team’s 13 medals in Bermuda so far. It leaves Team Shetland sitting ninth out of 24 islands in the overall table.

After taking nearly a second off her 100m breaststroke record in Wednesday morning’s heats, Andrea well and truly demolished it in the evening final. Her time of 1:08.56 left nearest challenger Laura Kinley, from the Isle of Man, trailing almost two seconds behind.

The games record now stands some three seconds quicker than it was going into today’s racing. To put 20-year-old Andrea’s achievements in context, her time was only three seconds off the pace which won gold in the London Olympics last summer. 

And she wasn’t finished there: just a few minutes later Andrea had made sure of silver in the 50m freestyle. Her time of 26.56 seconds was 0.06 of a second behind host swimmer Ashley Yearwood’s time.

Amy Harper swam very well in the same final, finishing the race in 26.87 seconds. That was 0.15 of a second off the bronze medal pace set by Guernsey’s Courtney Butcher.

Swimming coach Lorraine Gifford said she was “delighted with Andrea’s medals tonight – especially as the races were one after the other”.Andrea was particularly pleased with her performance in the 100m breaststroke, which was a personal best time. 

In the men’s events, Felix came seventh in the 100m freestyle and fifth in the 100m individual medley. The latter saw another isles swimmer, Callum MacGregor, finish sixth.

There were fifth-place finishes for Team Shetland in both the men’s 4x100m medley relay and the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay.  

Thursday sees the fourth and final day’s action at Bermuda’s outdoor pool.

Other medal hopes before the games close this weekend include Emma Leask in Friday night’s 800m. 

* The Shetland Times will carry comprehensive photos and coverage of Shetland’s fortunes in the 2013 NatWest Island Games in its next two editions, starting on Friday (19th July).