'I promise you it's going to be special' - Island Games chairman

While having now served as honorary chairman of the International Island Games Association since 2007, he travelled to the Isle of Man in 1985 with no idea of a career path he was setting himself on.

His name may have been misspelt in the Aland team list in the official programme for the volleyball, but he came home with a gold medal from what became the first Island Games, after Aland’s volleyball team beat Iceland 3-0 in the final. He was one of 700 competitors from 15 islands, mostly European.

Pettersson was also among the competitors and officials who realised that this ‘one-off’ event should not be just a one-off. And nearly 40 years on, he is ‘Mr Island Games’.

‘The Island Games made me realise as a youngster the importance of sport as a catalyst for mankind, countries and the ideas that are needed for all sorts of development,’ he said.

‘The IIGA is driven by the fact that your strongest competitors indeed are your best friends. We combine competition and friendship with a genuine strive to develop not only people but also societies.’

No longer a volleyballer but still active – you are more likely to find him involved in rowing or squash, or playing chess – this magazine publisher, company director and Aland politician is the voice and face of the Island Games. And he is as excited, if not more so, than he was back in the Isle of Man in the 1980s.

• Listen to the full interview with Jorgen Pettersson on our Guernsey 2023 preview podcast

‘I’m always full of expectation at this time, not so much for myself, but full of what all these young guys and girls from the different member islands are looking forward to.

‘They are for the moment, they are combining their time with the training in order to become as good as possible. They’re also planning for their trip, what to bring, what not to bring, who to see, who to meet, what to expect.

‘I’m full of expectations in many ways, and this year probably more than usually. We had the pandemic to handle, and we have sorted it out, and Guernsey have made a tremendous job in doing so.

‘We said when the pandemic hit, that we were hindered, but we were never stopped, and that we would come back as sort of a beacon for each and every one of us, because we had needed something to look forward to. It’s going to happen now, we’re very close and I can’t wait.’

Covid led to the postponement of Guernsey 2021, which quickly became 2023. It was a big, but ultimately pretty simple decision for the IIGA to postpone.

• The NatWest International Island Games get under way on Saturday evening with the opening ceremony in St Peter Port, with competition starting on Sunday morning. All events are free for spectators - the full programme can be found at guernsey2023.gg

‘We did what we always have expected our competitors to do, try a little bit harder, adjust to new situations and deliver the best you can. So in a way, I think that us as administrators now have been put to a task that we have usually expected from our competitors, but we have not been used to do it ourselves,’ he said.

‘It’s not so much that we have made it, but the way we have made it. It’s shown that cooperation is not just empty words, it’s something that delivers. And this time it has, because when everything did happen in 2020, we, like the rest of the world, didn’t know how to act because we’d never seen it before.’

Pettersson said he had particularly been impressed by Guernsey’s management of the games up to the starting gun.

‘What I’ve seen of the Guernsey organising committee under the leadership of Dame Mary has been ultra professional. You can see the [Guernsey] stubbornness, which I think is a very, very good way of handling things sometimes. For these games, it has particularly paid off.

‘You need to be a little bit stubborn to deliver something like the NatWest International Island Games. It won’t happen automatically. You need someone who is determined to make it a reality.’

But the Games was not a one-man or one-woman thing, he said.

‘The NatWest International Island Games is not a one-man show, certainly not, far from it. It is the effect of 24 islands working together. And the efforts that each and every island and each and every competitor have done in order to reach Guernsey, it’s tremendous. They have succeeded in a way that’s very difficult to explain, to understand.

‘They have made sacrifices, not only physical ones, but also financial ones in order to get the time and the money in order to get to Guernsey. It’s amazing to see what you’re capable of if you’re looking forward to a value like the games.’

Pettersson keeps looking forward, and despite a change of sponsor required after NatWest ends its marathon support for the Games next month, the chairman is optimistic about the future.

‘We have been looking into the possibility of adding new member islands to our association which could bring in diversity and new strengths to our Games family. It has been an ongoing goal to spread the idea and the vision of our Games to other islands that meet the requirements in our constitution.’

And for the next week, he’s looking for strength and depth in performances and relationships to make Guernsey 2023 another standout, comeback, Games.

‘Everyone that has made all these efforts to make it to Guernsey, are not there just to have fun. I hope they will have fun because that’s one of the parts of the Games, but they’re there to show something, to prove something.

‘I’m very convinced that we’re going to see achievements and performances beyond what we’ve ever seen before this summer in Guernsey.’