Records galore as Games buzz captures swimmers

SIGNS are promising that the Channel Islands will once again enjoy a gold rush in the pool at the Island Games in Aland this summer.

In the first three sessions of this weekend's main meeting of the Specsavers CI Championship, no fewer than 36 records were broken and many in convincing style.

Not unusually, several Games gold medallists were among those who set new marks with Ben Lowndes, Jonathon Le Noury and Jeremy Osborne among the Sarnians to excel at Beau Sejour.

Others went to undoubted future Games stars such as Kristina Neves (with seven), the Parfit siblings and Joshua Lewis, who shone on Saturday afternoon. The 15-year-old's performance in the 200m breaststroke was outstanding.

Up against Lowndes, Lewis trailed the Guernsey Swimming Club star by nearly a second at the halfway mark, but 50m later he had eased past him and went on to win in 2min. 28.88sec.

It was a new age-group record by more than seven seconds and a national qualifying time to boot.