The main story on the official Island Games website today is about the finishing touches being put to the refurbishment of the track. The full story is at
I'm sure I read last year sometime that the whole track was going to be completely relaid, but it seems they have gone for the next-best option of patching, re-coating and cleaning it. I think this is more or less what was done at the NSC when the Games were last held on the Isle of Man in 2001. The lanes are about to be re-painted and it should look good when it's finished. I mentioned recently that the track is very close to the stand - look how close the runners in Lane 6 will be to the spectators!
In 1991 it had a reputation of being a 'fast track' and many Island Games records were set that year. 5 of the track records stand to this day, although one is in an event that is no longer part of the programme. That was set by our own Brenda Walker in the women's 3000 metres. In addition, both the men's and the women's Half Marathon records set in 1991 still stand (Brenda again in the women's event) although I understand that there were the gravest of doubts over the course measurement on that occasion.
At least the track and the stand are there in Aland. When we arrived in Rhodes 2 years ago they had only just started building the stand and they hadn't even started on most of the field event areas!!
On a different subject altogether, I was a little miffed to pick up the Manx Independent today and find that much of the article about the athletics team had been lifted straight from one of the earlier entries on my blog! I'm always happy to help the media with publicising athletics, but it would have been nice to have been asked for permission to use my material, especially as a blog is effectively a personal diary and in any case is totally unofficial. The main problem I had with today's piece was that the information about the athletes who aren't going to Aland was used as the main part of the story, creating a bit of a negative article. A very similar article appeared in the press before the Rhodes Games 2 years ago. Had I been asked for permission to use material from the blog, I would have specifically asked for it not to be used in this way.
The next entry will focus on 3 of the athletes who are preparing for their second Games - Thomas Riley, Michael Haslett and Peter Richardson.
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