IOW DAY TWO ROUND UP

Monday morning, and the mist which had wrapped the Isle of Wight since we arrived had lifted giving us the benefit of the sun and the highest temperatures of the English summer so far. It was clearly a day for lying back and not doing very much. This luxury was however denied to our lone swimmer and youngest competitor in the Nat West Island Games, Sorrel Pompert-Robertson , who found herself early in the morning, in the even hotter and steamier surroundings of the pool at the Medina Leisure Centre, waiting to compete in her first heat, the 50m breaststroke.

 All around Sorrel on the pool side as the swimming event was opened by former Olympic swimming star, Duncan Goodhew, were gathered the teams of the other competing islands, but Sorrel sat alone and nervous, accompanied only by her coach Natalie Brett. Once the event started, Sorrel had to continue to wait while some of the best swimmers she had ever seen ploughed up and down the pool, under the supervision of a small army of race officials.

It was a daunting situation and at this point in proceedings, no one would have been surprised if she had simply turned tail and fled, but Sorrel proved to be made of sterner stuff. And when her heat arrived she came a close second to a more experienced swimmer, in the process knocking four seconds from her previous best time for this event. More than that, her time oif 42.75 seconds was later discovered to be the third best ever to be recorded by a Falkand Islands female swimmer over the same distance.

Clearly delighted by her success, afterwards Sorrel said that she is looking forward very much to Wednesday when she gets to compete again at her best event., the 50m freestyle. This will be followed on Thursday by two events: the 100m freestyle and the 100m medley race in which Sorrel will swim, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. Beyond that, Sorrel says, maybe the Commonwealth Games? Given the toughness of spirit she displayed today, we wouldn't be at all surprised.

Full details of scores of all the Games' events and even recorded commentaries can be found elsewhere on this web site. Obviously, with so much going on, the FIOGA media team can not be at every event, every day, but with the help of a bit of basic map reading and an occasionally cranky satellite navigator, we try to do our best.

Getting around the Island to visit the various sporting venues has been sometimes a bit of a trial with slow-moving holiday traffic and a complicated web of narrow minor roads to negotiate. Today, however, with the help of a somewhat cranky satellite navigating system, we found the almost secret location deep in the Isle of Wight countryside, where Bono McKay and Saul Pitaluga have been attempting to blast clay pigeons out of the sky for the past two days. Shooting today as a team in what is called Universal Trap, they expressed themselves somewhat disappointed with their results, but we loved the location in a quintessentially English wooded valley, surrounded by trees and will certainly need no excuse to go there again.....if we can find it. We have not yet seen the Falklands other shooter, Mat Vincent in action, so that will provide us with an excuse for another visit.

 To be honest, on such a hot and sunny day it was hard to leave the idyllic rural surroundings of the Sainham Godshill shooting club to head for the heat of the Ryde High School Sports Hall and the badminton competition, now into the second day of the team competition. On arrival, however, we were delighted to find that, as expected, the Falklands team were having a much better day than Sunday when victory eluded them.

 To our chagrin, we missed the excitement of the Falklands first victories, won by Doug Clark in a singles match against an opponent from Shetland (21-8 and 21-14) and the men's doubles (Doug Clark and Michael Brownlee) victory (21-16 & 22-20) over opponents from Gotland. In terms of the Falklands' modest ambition to strive to win at least one match, this was “job done” twice over.

Twice could have become thrice for Doug, with mixed doubles partner Anna Luxton, when only a couple of points (20-22 & 18-21) separated them from victory against Gotland in a very exciting match.

 With the time approaching for tonight's football match against the Isle of Man, and the badminton programme suffering from great delays, we had to leave Ryde High School before our team took on Gibraltar. Once again, it appears that we missed some great matches, including Doug Clark making his hat trick with a victory in the men's singles and Mike Brownlee and Jo Turner winning the mixed doubles. In the words of spectator, Andy Brownlee, “the whole team punched above their weight.”

And so to the football on a sunny summer evening on Rockly FC's beautiful pitch. Sadly, it was another 6-0 defeat, if that is the right word for what happened to a team which

again played its heart out and never gave up trying. In fact, as someone once said, this was very much a “game of two halves” with the Falklands looking much more organised in the second half and coming very close to scoring at least one consolation goal towards the end. The 'Man of the Match' award this time went to Adam Glanville for his spirited defending. Adam's willingness to put even the tenderest parts of his body between the ball and his own goal was always effective, if sometimes eye-watering.

Tomorrow, there will be more of everything except swimming, but our main focus, satellite-navigating system permitting, will be to catch up with golfers, who start their campaign tomorrow; the men at Freshwater Bay Golf Club and the ladies at the Shanklin and Sandown. What are the chances of another hole-in-one for Kevin Clapp?