Guernsey Press

Merrien's men bring back gold

JERSEY are already heading over the horizon at the top of the medals table and on the Reds' 'Super Sunday' thousands of Caesareans turned out in force to shout them home.

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For Guernsey, it was a satisfactory start, but not the glorious one the 248-strong squad had hoped for, ending the day lying in fifth place in the medals table.

The solitary gold came via the half-marathon, the team of Lee Merrien, Mike Wilesmith and Dave Emery stood on top of the podium at FB Fields where Sarnia Cherie blasted out over the tannoys which moments earlier had curiously heralded a medals ceremony with the Monty Python theme, so out of character with a serious sporting event.

Merrien had woken up harbouring real hopes of another individual gold, but he was pushed into silver medal position by the Bermudian Chris Estwanik.

The opening day's other big event – the triathlon – drew a huge crowd to the seafront in St Helier and here James Travers added his own individual silver and collected another via the team event behind the triumphant Caesareans headed by the marvellous Dan Halksworth.

Guernsey's fourth silver came from the 10m air pistol women's team of Nikki Trebert and Rebecca Margetts, while the day's two bronzes came from 50m free pistol duo Lord Erik de Saumarez and Jacek Hanca, plus distance runner Louise Perrio.

Live coverage of today's events continues on guernseypress.com

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