‘Home Games will be special’ – Cam

The Guernsey 400m great and Olympic hopeful, who is currently warm-weather training in South Africa, admitted that he had been looking forward to the local spectacle for ‘a long time’.

‘It’s going to be special because it’s probably the only chance I’ll get in my life, as an athlete anyway, to compete in front of a home crowd, with friends, family and local sponsors, on a track where I started my athletics career,’ said Chalmers.

Chalmers has made few local appearances since going full-time in the UK, including a 400m victory at the 2018 ‘Guernsey International’ where he narrowly missed Dale Garland’s track record, but he clearly considers the home ‘Friendly Games’ to be on another level.

‘That’s why I’m really looking forward to it and I’ve heard people talking about the Games in 2003 in Guernsey and how many people turned up and how loud it was as a local Guernsey athlete.

‘I’m really hoping I can compete in as many things as possible when the competition comes around next year and do my best to maybe break the track record and get some gold medals.

‘The only [Island Games] I’ve got to do was Jersey 2015 and that was the first real competition I’ve won as an athlete, so that really gave me the experience of the championship in a multi-sport competition.

‘That’s really helped me moving on to things like the Commonwealth Games, the World Championships and hopefully this year the Olympics.

‘So it’s a great opportunity for athletes from Guernsey to obviously enjoy the experience and try to run some PBs and bring home some medals, but also to push on for the rest of their careers.’