Harriet Pryke, Ciara McDonnell, Sarah Dowling and Rachael Franklin celebrate their silver medals and new IOM record in the 4x400m Relay.
Peter Richardson, Thomas Riley, Ben Brand and Michael Haslett had a relaxed and laid-back attitude to the relays - and prove it here! They also won silver medals and set a new IOM record - a great performance.
A great run from Andy Duncan in the 1500m Final. Despite suffering horrendous blisters he surged through the field to finish in a fine 6th position. He so nearly caught the Isle of Wight athlete in front of him here.The final 3 events of the Games involving the IOM athletes on Friday were the two 4x400m relays and the men’s 1500 metres final – and all produced cracking performances from the Manx athletes to round off a great week.
After the Half Marathon runners had headed out onto the roads, it was time for the 4x400m relays, and again it was the women who went first. Our team was slightly different to the 4x100m squad, with Rachael Franklin replacing Danielle Ross and a different running order. The leg order was Ciara McDonnell, Rachael Franklin, Sarah Dowling and Harriet Pryke, and with no heats being required for the event this was the first time the team had run together. And what a performance they produced! All 4 girls ran their hearts out and were rewarded with the silver medal and a new IOM record of 3.56.69. This is 1.24 seconds inside the old record set in Gibraltar in 1995 by Julie Moore, Cheryl Done, Danielle McCarrick and Deirdre McLoughlin. The Jersey team who won gold are all very highly-rated athletes and to get to within less than 2 seconds of them was a great performance. Harriet was closing in rapidly on the 200m and 400m gold medalist Gemma Dawkins on the anchor leg. We were nearly 11 seconds clear of the bronze medal winning Shetland squad.
It was then the turn of the lads, with a running order of Peter Richardson, Michael Haslett, Thomas Riley and Ben Brand. Like the girls, they also turned in a superb performance, they also won the silver medal, and they also cracked the IOM record with a time of 3.19.85. The splits were remarkably even, all four of the lads running legs of almost exactly 50 seconds. Their time took 0.50 of a second off the record set in Gotland in 1999 by Kevin Furlong, Kieron Murray, Gary Hunter and Paul Bergquist. This was a fabulous effort, and I was pleased too that Ryan Fairclough also received a medal having run very well in the Heat earlier in the week in place of Tom Riley. There was a memorable performance from the gold medal winning Guernsey team, who were using the race for an attempt at the Commonwealth Games qualifying time. This they achieved with something to spare, having flown in their 2008 GB Olympic relay runner Dale Garland especially for this single event. I’ll have to check my video to see what his leg time was – sub-46 I should think!
The final event was the men’s 1500 metres final, in which Andy Duncan ran a measured and controlled race to record a big pb. He started cautiously, and after 2 laps he was down in around 10th or 11th position. On the third lap he gradually upped the pace and started to reel in several of his rivals, and then on the last lap he produced a real kick in the finishing straight to get up to a fine 6th place finish with a time of 4.07.64. Indeed he only just failed by a fraction of a second to overhaul Newnham of the Isle of Wight. This was a great run by Andy despite suffering from badly blistered feet – the state he was in afterwards suggested that he had just done the Parish Walk barefoot! This race produced another cracking run by a Guernsey athlete – this time Lee Merrien. He beat his own Island Games record to win in great style in 3.49.58. Not quite as fast as Keith Gerrard ran recently though, and I really hope Keith competes in the Games next time.
After the Half Marathon runners had headed out onto the roads, it was time for the 4x400m relays, and again it was the women who went first. Our team was slightly different to the 4x100m squad, with Rachael Franklin replacing Danielle Ross and a different running order. The leg order was Ciara McDonnell, Rachael Franklin, Sarah Dowling and Harriet Pryke, and with no heats being required for the event this was the first time the team had run together. And what a performance they produced! All 4 girls ran their hearts out and were rewarded with the silver medal and a new IOM record of 3.56.69. This is 1.24 seconds inside the old record set in Gibraltar in 1995 by Julie Moore, Cheryl Done, Danielle McCarrick and Deirdre McLoughlin. The Jersey team who won gold are all very highly-rated athletes and to get to within less than 2 seconds of them was a great performance. Harriet was closing in rapidly on the 200m and 400m gold medalist Gemma Dawkins on the anchor leg. We were nearly 11 seconds clear of the bronze medal winning Shetland squad.
It was then the turn of the lads, with a running order of Peter Richardson, Michael Haslett, Thomas Riley and Ben Brand. Like the girls, they also turned in a superb performance, they also won the silver medal, and they also cracked the IOM record with a time of 3.19.85. The splits were remarkably even, all four of the lads running legs of almost exactly 50 seconds. Their time took 0.50 of a second off the record set in Gotland in 1999 by Kevin Furlong, Kieron Murray, Gary Hunter and Paul Bergquist. This was a fabulous effort, and I was pleased too that Ryan Fairclough also received a medal having run very well in the Heat earlier in the week in place of Tom Riley. There was a memorable performance from the gold medal winning Guernsey team, who were using the race for an attempt at the Commonwealth Games qualifying time. This they achieved with something to spare, having flown in their 2008 GB Olympic relay runner Dale Garland especially for this single event. I’ll have to check my video to see what his leg time was – sub-46 I should think!
The final event was the men’s 1500 metres final, in which Andy Duncan ran a measured and controlled race to record a big pb. He started cautiously, and after 2 laps he was down in around 10th or 11th position. On the third lap he gradually upped the pace and started to reel in several of his rivals, and then on the last lap he produced a real kick in the finishing straight to get up to a fine 6th place finish with a time of 4.07.64. Indeed he only just failed by a fraction of a second to overhaul Newnham of the Isle of Wight. This was a great run by Andy despite suffering from badly blistered feet – the state he was in afterwards suggested that he had just done the Parish Walk barefoot! This race produced another cracking run by a Guernsey athlete – this time Lee Merrien. He beat his own Island Games record to win in great style in 3.49.58. Not quite as fast as Keith Gerrard ran recently though, and I really hope Keith competes in the Games next time.
That was the end of the competition, and the athletics team finished with a very impressive haul of 12 medals -2 gold, 6 silver and 4 bronze. A really great effort. A report on the last night party will not appear here - what goes on on tour, stays on tour as they say, and everyone had a lot of fun!!
This is not quite the end of the blog though, as I will post some more considered thoughts about the performance of the team over the next few days. I also have over 7 hours of video footage to go through to try to reduce to just over 2 hours to go on a DVD - not an easy task! Incidentally, I have realised since watching some of the video that my reporting of one or two of the events at the time wasn't entirely accurate, and I am editing these as and when I find inaccuracies as I want them to be correct for future reference. The report of Gemma's 5000m race in particular has been edited quite a bit - it's difficult to fully take in what's happening when you are filming!
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