Golden Roe wins joust on wheels

The Sarnians added five more golds to their medal count, taking them up to 15 at the halfway point in the week, with James Roe's frantic sprint finish to claim the men's mountain bike cross-country one of the major highlights of the day.

Fittingly, his thrilling dual with the Isle of Man's Nick Corlett over the last couple hundred of metres took place in the jousting arena just outside the Visby city wall and it was Roe who triumphed.

His efforts also helped towards a team silver along with Mike Serafin and 16-year-old Games debutant Sam Culverwell.

'From a personal note it was great and it was also great for young Sam in his very first race in a Games,' said a grinning Roe.

'It is a team event as well as an individual race and I would rather everyone go home with a medal than just me because we all train together to make this possible.

'It was quite a tactical race where it would keep going hard then ease off so it was hard to get a gap to stick. Me and Nick Corlett marked each other and it just came down to a 50-50 sprint, which I just about made it through.'

Two more golds came in the pool where Tom Hollingsworth added a second to his individual collection in the men's 100m butterfly and the men's 4x50m freestyle team were also victorious.

There was another title for the recurve archers, this time in the mixed pairs head-to-head knockout, while there were more heroics from Josh Stacey in table tennis as Guernsey made it three team golds in a row with a 4-3 win over Greenland.