Le Friec starts the golden ball rolling

ROBYN LE FRIEC won Guernsey's first gold medal of the Island Games with a brave swim in the women's 100m butterfly at the Idrottscenter yesterday.

The 19-year-old has been struggling for the last three months with a serious ankle injury.

But she put this to one side as she broke the Island Games record with a time of 1min. 4.31sec. to win gold.

'I was so pleased for Robyn. She deserved that gold medal,' said Guernsey's head swimming coach, Alison Frankland.

'She's been having problems with her ankle, which curtailed her training and we weren't sure how she was going to do. But she pulled out all the stops.'

Ben Lowndes had the honour of claiming Guernsey's second gold of the week as he won the 200m butterfly with a time of 2-02.20 which was also a Commonwealth Games qualifying time.

Fellow Sarnian Ian Hubert took silver in the same race.

Lowndes also claimed the bronze in the 50m backstroke with a time of 27.23.

Jonathon Le Noury, 25, also got a qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi next year when he won bronze in the 1,500m freestyle with 15-56.07.

'Jonathon's swim was brilliant and he's over the moon,' said Frankland.

Ross Yeates turned in a good performance in the race as well, finishing in a sub 17min. time.

Jeremy Osbourne took bronze in the 200m individual medley and 14-year-old Lotte Parfit also found herself on the podium with a bronze medal round her neck when she came third in the 400m individual medley.

In all it was a great opening day for the Guernsey swimming team.

'They've done really well,' said Frankland.

'The competition is very tough. I'm really pleased for the first day as we've come away with some medals.

'It gives us confidence for the next three days. It's got us off to a really good start.'