The 19-year-old Sarnian defied all expectations by taking top spot in an Island Games A standard of 31min. 2sec. at the Eastleigh 10km – an exactly 3min. personal best from his previous effort for the distance.
The Cardiff University student had gone out with the lead group before making his main move on the otherwise flat course’s one significant hill, approaching the 4km mark, and having only the lead car for company from there.
He finished 15sec. clear of runner-up Alex Matthews in topping a 2,480-finisher field.
‘Coming into it, I was thinking top 10 would be a great result,’ he said.
‘I knew I was in pretty good shape so was hoping to run mid-31s, so when we started off at quite a conservative pace I decided I wanted to push it to hopefully get a good time expecting the others to latch on.
‘But instead I managed to get a bit of a gap, which I somehow kept extending throughout the rest of the race.’
Having only the week prior run 15-01 for 5km in Leicester, Rees led the Sarnian contingent at this fast and easily accessible road race and was favoured both to place highly and beat Guernsey’s freshly-launched Faroe Islands 2027 A standard of 32-15.
However, Vanessa King produced an outstanding run to come away with an Island Games A standard of her own, together with climbing to 11th on the Guernsey women’s all-time list.
King ran a well-measured run of 38-25 to finish ninth woman overall and claim top prize for the V35-39 age category.
It also showed the seasoned athlete at a new level of performance. She had run her previous best of 39-15 at last year’s Easter Festival, and gone on to represent Guernsey over both 10,000m and half marathon at Orkney 2025, but this marked a significant improvement and fell 15sec. within the A standard for the Faroes.
Among the other Guernsey runners, Mikey Ingrouille displayed his much-improved distance form to finish 41st overall in 34-26.
George Nichols posted 35-23 and Ben Langlois 35-59 to continue the run of significant PBs.
Ben Foote ran 36-07 to narrowly miss his own best as 62-year-old Paul Ingrouille – the dedicated coach to most of these athletes and making a rare road racing appearance – completed the contingent in 43-39.
