Sunday’s Aztec Track and Field Series finale brought attention to some often-overshadowed disciplines, not only through Island record-holder Banbury in the hammer – making her first appearance since striking silver at Guernsey 2023 – but also a stacked long jump competition where six competitors reached 6m at Footes Lane.
Among them was previous 7m man Jordan Kelly, making his own comeback after over two years out, while Theo Le Tissier and Emil Friedrich set new age-group records.
Competing in rainy, windy and uninspiring conditions at the start of the meet, Banbury surpassed the Faroe Islands 2027 A standard of 40m on all four legal throws.
Her best result, 41.43m, of this remarkably consistent series came on the fourth of six total efforts.
The 25-year-old explained that the absence of hammer from Orkney 2025 and next year’s initial hosts, Ynys Mon, had contributed to her stepping away from the sport.
‘I decided I’ve been training for 12 years and I wanted to take a bit of a break,’ she said.
But now, her interest piqued by the wider Faroes programme, she had put in three months’ training and entered the season finale to ‘see how I could get on’.
‘I’m reasonably happy,’ added a thrower whose Guernsey record stands at 44.97m.
‘I got the standard, which is the main thing, and my body has held up.
‘Hopefully with a proper winter, and proper training, I will be back up where I was.’
James Bougourd took second overall with 36.86m, using the significantly heavier men’s implement, while younger rival Tom Brierley enjoyed a shift in focus to his usual discus and followed with 35.31m.
Sprinter Le Tissier emerged as the victor of a compelling long jump competition.
His crowning effort came on the fourth round when he capitalised on his rapid run-up to summon a 6.60m leap, which added 4cm to Simon Sebire’s U18 record set 27 years ago and happened to match the Games A standard.
This enabled him to take the scalp of Kelly, who made a one-off triple jump appearance in early 2024 but had not competed in his specialist discipline since the home Games.
Kelly had opened with 6.47m, leading at that stage from Le Tissier’s promising 6.35m and veteran Dale Garland’s 6.29m.
U16 Friedrich defied a lack of specific training to hit 6.17m on his second effort, 23cm beyond his existing age-group mark, while women’s record-holder Abi Galpin and U18 high-jump star David Bown both finished on exactly 6m.
U16 Victoria Jackson claimed women’s runner-up with 4.70m.
U18 Joe Prince dominated the shot put with a newly adopted rotational technique, firing off a 14.63m in the fifth round. He left the versatile Friedrich to take runner-up on 12.11m.
Bown had topped the high jump with a clearance of 1.77m.
The 1,500m proved a highlight of the track schedule, with a four-way race among the men, while top woman Eleanor Jamieson achieved a PB in a solo push.
Promising U14 Paul Friedrich led the way initially but was closely tracked by veteran Toby Mann, plus U18s James Stafford-Bell and Samuel Oldham from Jersey.
Mann set the tempo for the middle of the race and then young Friedrich attacked just after the bell, which preceded further yo-yoing between the two.
Mann got ahead again but Friedrich’s fast finish proved decisive as he won in 4-24.09, 1.02sec. clear of his British Masters-bound rival.
Both Stafford-Bell and Oldham managed PBs, yet the Sarnian got the upper hand in 4-26.56, his inter-island opponent posting 4-29.49.
U20 Jamieson ended up in a tough solo race with the carrot of her first A standard for the distance.
However, after a determined surge towards the finish line, she ended up just short of that mark and came away instead with a marginal PB – 4-49.94.
As one of several athletes taking on demanding solo time-trials in the longer hurdles races, Nic Ackermann completed a 400m double.
He covered the 400m hurdles in a commendable 56.54, having to dig deep on the home straight, and was back little over an hour later to produce a rare local sub-50sec. clocking – a 49.77 – for the flat equivalent.
Over 100m, Le Tissier took the win in 11.11, with Galpin second overall in 11.95.
The fixture also included specialist masters’ competitions for veteran athletes in the 400m and mile.
The rarely seen track mile proved the most popular, attracting seven competitors.
V50 Jon Sexton won in 5-53.27 as a relative youngster, while taking over twice that time was V85 Keith De Carteret, who had miscounted laps and been encouraged by fellow competitors to complete the final circuit in a show of the friendly spirit of these races.
