Teenage quartet to make Games bow as gymnastics returns

The sport features on the main programme for the first time since Gotland 2017, with Aland’s Inter-Island Games two years ago having helped certain competitors bridge the gap.

Sofia MacNab, Abigail Christie, Amelia Hann and Alexia Nascimento are all in their teenage years and make up the Guernsey squad.

Hann and Nascimento have previous big-competition experience from the Inter-Island Games, where they helped lift Guernsey to a fine fifth-place finish.

But Island Gymnastics head coach and Guernsey team manager Anna Petts admits that it would be a big ask to medal in Orkney.

‘The competition’s huge,’ she said.

‘These other islands, they’ve got the facilities and a lot more time to develop the skills, but we just do the best we can with what we have.

‘We just want them to go enjoy themselves and go for the experience.

‘It will be a really good experience for us and for the girls. It’s nice that they’re going to represent the island and they get to wear the official team kit.’

Since they are staying in school halls around the competition site in Stromness, they will also be taking the opportunity to train at a different venue to their unobtrusive St John’s Church Hall grounds.

Christie, at 17, is the oldest member of the young quartet and yet this is her first big competition.

‘I’m really excited,’ she said.

‘It’s a new opportunity for me, because I’ve never been at a big one before.

‘It’s a bit scary – all the other teams are really good. But it will be fun.

‘I think it will make me much more confident and it will be exciting to train in a new location, because I’ve been here for a long time.’

Having done the sport for 10 years, and now being a coach and mentor for other youngsters at Island Gymnastics, she is looking forward to sharing the trip with friendly faces.

‘They are all really nice and I get along with all of them.

‘Everyone has their strengths and together we make a strong team.’