Lesbirel our new sprint queen of the track
THERE was elation among the Guernsey crowd as Hannah Lesbirel took gold and Josh Allaway took silver in a spectacular penultimate Island Games track and field session.
Lesbirel powered ahead in the final straight of the women's 200m to clock a wind-assisted time of 24.69sec. in dethroning defending champion Taahira Butterfield.
The island record-holder was under heavy pressure after running leading times in both of her qualifying rounds, having clocked 24.90 in similar conditions to win her semi-final earlier the same day.
'I felt petrified, I really was petrified going into it,' she said.
'There was so much pressure on me to take the gold, but I'm quite a competitive person so I think I dealt with the pressure quite well, I wanted the gold and I just had to get it. I came out with a fighting spirit.'
Allaway put his doubts to rest by repeating his Jersey 2015 100m silver medal with a wind-assisted 10.55 which was also the fastest time ever run by a Guernsey athlete.
'It was incredible,' said Allaway.
'In Jersey I won the silver as well, but I came into the final not expecting much and through the week I had not really been running as well as I had been expecting, but I just stepped it up at the right time and let it all out.'
