Island Games: Get to know... Aland
Straddling the channel between Sweden to the west and Finland to the east, between the Baltic Sea to the south and the Bothnian Sea to the north, Aland is Europe’s largest archipelago, with more than 6,000 islands.
With Aland’s population being only around half that of Guernsey’s, that is an island for every five people.
Alanders are linguistically Swedish but constitutionally aligned with Finland – largely autonomous but represented in the Suomen Eduskunta, the Finnish parliament.
The islands’ economic mainstay is tourism, with visitors lured by the tranquil settings and a cuisine influenced by exotic ingredients brought back by adventurous seafarers over the centuries.
‘Many people here have their own boats and when the weather is fine, we’ll just take the boat out and find an island that’s uninhabited and spend the day there,’ Aland Island Games Association secretary Susanne Guildford told us.
‘We like visitors but we like to keep them at a distance – not too close. We’re used to our space.’
Agriculture is also an important part of the economy, which can boast low unemployment.
The plethora of islands presents Aland with its biggest challenge, with Susanne telling us that transport was the one thing Alanders loved to moan about. Schedules and reliability issues dominate the local news agenda, along with the thorny question of whether to provide publicly-funded services or contract out to private companies.
‘There is an election in October, so time is ticking for them to get it right or they will be gone,’ Susanne said.
Football is the number one sport in Aland, with IFK Mariehamn competing in the top Finnish men’s division – the Veikkausliiga – and Aland United playing in the top Finnish women’s division, the Kansallinen Liiga.
Mariehamn, Aland’s capital, was also the venue for the first ever game played by the Finland women’s national football team in 1973, when they faced nearby Sweden.
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Susanne listed volleyball, gymnastics, sailing, golf, swimming and athletics as the archipelago’s other popular sports.
As for the most revered Aland competitor in any sport, she named the marathon runner Janne Holmen.
He took gold for Finland in the 2002 European Championships in Munich and had a personal best of 2hrs 10mins 46s, which remains a Finnish national record.
Aland has been particularly successful in skeet shooting at the Island Games, winning twice as many gold medals as any other island over the years. However, this is not one of the shooting disciplines on offer at Guernsey 2023.
Susanne suggested table tennis player Marina Donner as a likely star for Aland at these Games. She won golds in the women’s singles and the mixed doubles at the last games in Gibraltar in 2019.
One stimulus that keeps Aland sport ticking is its rivalry with the larger, Swedish island of Gotland, 289km to the south.
As Susanne put it, ‘we can lose to anyone, apart from a Gotlander’.
ABOUT ALAND
Area: 1,580 sq. km (610 sq. miles)
Population: 30,129 (2020)
Population density: 19 per sq. km
Time zone: Two hours ahead of Guernsey
Distance from Guernsey: 1,833km (1,139m)
Total IG medals won: 567.5 (187 G, 196 S, 184.5 B)
Medals won in 2003: 21 (4 G, 13 S, 4 B)
Competitors coming to Guernsey: 109
Route: Direct charter flight from Aland to Guernsey
Sports in which competing: Archery, athletics, badminton, cycling, football, golf, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tennis, triathlon
Biggest sports star: Janne Holmen (athletics)
National delicacy: Alandspannkaka (Aland pancake), made with semolina or rice and served with prunes and whipped cream
Parliamentary representation: 30 members of Aland’s own parliament (the Lagting) and one member in Finland’s.
