Gold for Marit, Bronze for Gemma and Hollie!

Marit Zahkna celebrates with her Dad, who travelled from his home in Estonia to watch Marit compete in tonight's Hammer final. She won the first gold medal of the week for the Athletics team, shattering the Island Games record in the process with a best throw of 48.89 metres. A great performance!! Charlotte Christian finished 4th with a best throw of 37.44m, also an excellent performance.

A picture of sheer happiness! A bronze medal for Hollie Bass in the High Jump with 1.59 metres. She had no idea she had finished joint 3rd until several minutes after the end of the competition! She was agonisingly close to clearing 1.62 with her final attempt.

Gemma Astin can scarcely take in the fact that she has won a bronze medal in the 5000 metres Final, in a new pb time of 17.51.23. This was one of the most amazing performances I have ever witnessed, bearing in mind the problems Gemma has had this year. She has extraordinary courage as an athlete as well as great ability and this will be the first of many Island Games medals for her. You read it here first!

Rachael Franklin also has a great Island Games future ahead of her, and she explains to Manx Radio's Tim Glover how she took 10 seconds off her 1500m pb to land the silver medal yesterday. "It was all to do with the chocolate puddings from the Isle of Wight, Tim..."

I will report in more detail later tonight or tomorrow morning, but another celebratory drink on Games Street beckons first! The other event with IOM interest tonight was the men's 4x400m heats, in which the team of Peter Richardson, Ryan Fairclough, Michael Haslett and Ben Brand were in cruise control, finishing 2nd in their Heat and 3rd fastest overall to ease into Friday's Final with lots in hand. All in all another very successful day!