Team Shetland reps head to Guernsey
News Release - Thursday 7th July 2022
Two delegates from Shetland Island Games Association will attend - Lesley Hutchison, Vice Chair and Bob Kerr, Secretary - along with representatives of the other twenty one competing islands. Delegates will also attend the Annual General Meeting of the International Island Games Association, due to take place this Saturday.
The next Games will take place from Saturday 8th - Friday 14th July 2023 in Guernsey, a Crown Dependency in the Channel Islands with a population of around 60,000. Guernsey Island Games Association has been a regular Games participant since the first Games in 1985 and has previously hosted the Games in 1987 and 2003 - making it the first island to host the Games for a third time.
The 2023 Games will include a programme of fourteen sports: Archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, cycling, football, golf, indoor bowls, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tennis and triathlon.
Among this list, the sports of football and golf make a return to the 2023 Games, having been left out of the sports programme of the last Games held in Gibraltar in 2019. Indoor bowls also returns to the Games, having last been played in Shetland in 2005 and before then in Guernsey in 1987.
The Games were due to be held in July 2021 but a decision was made in September 2020 in the midst of the covid pandemic to postpone the Games until the summer of 2023 - a gap of four years since the last Games in 2019.
Lesley Hutchison said: "After the postponement of the 2021 Games, we're looking forward to 2023 and to hear from the Guernsey Organising Committee on their plans. We expect to find out details of the sports programmes and their Games plans, including accommodation and on-island transport for Games participants. On our return, it will be less than 12 months until the Games and our own planning for Shetland Island Games Team will gather pace in the coming months."
More information about the Guernsey 2023 Games can be found online at - www.guernsey2023.gg/
