Young swimmers shine on maiden Malta international trip
Chloe Bown’s five golds and three Island records made her stand out among a dazzling all-round performance from Guernsey’s swimmers at the Malta Invitational Games.
But it was not quite the Games the squad had envisaged beforehand, as team manager Sara Parfit admitted on the Guernsey Press Sport Podcast.
Guernsey entered with 14 swimmers across the U15 and U18 age groups and, although they had been led to expect a mini Island Games over three days, they learned not long beforehand that all their events would be condensed into a single afternoon.
Guernsey’s 19 gold and 54 total medals were all achieved in a three-hour timeframe, against opposition from Cyprus, Malta and San Marino.
‘It was quite an interesting experience,’ Parfit said.
‘The competition itself was very slick – very nice indeed.
Hear the full interview with Sara Parfit on this week’s Guernsey Press Sport Podcast
‘However, they changed the format just before the competition, so that surprised us all a little bit.
‘Not just Guernsey, I might add, but some of the other nations as well weren’t awfully happy about that.
‘But, nevertheless, it actually produced a really fast competition.
‘The nations that were there, particularly Cyprus, brought some very quick swimmers with them, which made some for some great racing.’
Not only did Guernsey finish second on the medal table – topped on golds only by Cyprus, and equalled by Malta – but many of these swims came with personal bests.
Most impressively of all, U18 swimmer Bown achieved a clean sweep of golds in her five events across the individual medley and breaststroke disciplines.
Her 100m IM of 1min. 3.48sec. broke the Guernsey record, as did her blazing breaststroke swims over 100m (1-09.96) and 200m (2-31.88).
Also competing in the U18s, Josh Dunning and Delphine Riley showed impressive stamina by winning two golds apiece within packed individual programmes that featured draining distance events.
In the U15s, both Zach Maiden and Emma Bourgaize achieved treble golds.
Elodie Riley, Cooper Robinson, Samuel Cann and Henry Bolton also claimed individual golds, and every competitor achieved at least one medal.
Parfit’s expectations had been blown out of the water.
‘When we got to the competition and before we started, I had a little huddle and I said “Look, this format is not what we expected, you’re really going to be pushing yourselves this afternoon, don’t worry about your PBs, let’s just go out there, have fun and just race to the best of our ability.”
‘And they came home with [over] 50 medals.
‘A very large quantity of those were actually personal bests as well – so absolutely amazing.’
