Ala prays there is no clash
ALASTAIR CHALMERS has announced his intent to compete at the Guernsey 2021 NatWest Island Games – as long as there is still space on his schedule.
Eyes are already on 2021 given the potential for immense disruption to the current season, due to Covid-19 concerns, and outstanding 400m hurdler Alastair says he has saved the date for the coming home spectacle.
Elder brother Cam had also suggested that he would target the home Island Games, with both siblings missing Gibraltar 2019 due to alternative focuses.
Both are now united in hoping that the Olympic Games rearrangement falls on a favourable date.
‘I definitely think it’s going to be a very hectic year, 2021, because we’ll have the Olympics on, I’ll have the U23 Europeans and most importantly, of course, the Island Games in Guernsey,’ said Alastair with his tongue in cheek.
‘It’ll definitely be a hard one and I hope nothing clashes, because that’d be really upsetting if I missed the Island Games or another huge competition.’
Alastair, despite appreciating the extra qualifying time granted by the Tokyo 2020 postponement, has certainly not been unaffected by the widespread loss of organised sporting activity.
‘We were about to go out to Florida [on Friday] for a month to have a great training block there and hopefully to race a few times and then come off of that and come back to England and race really well. Of course, that’s been cancelled.’
But he is otherwise confident in his training set-up and optimistic that the coronavirus situation will resolve itself soon.
‘It’s just about adapting, knuckling down and just training now. I didn’t do any indoors so I’m really focused on outdoors – hopefully there’s going to be lots of competitions later on in the season and we can really go from there and see where we are.’
