The Isle of Wight won 6 gold medals – in sailing, golf and swimming – on the 6th day of the Orkney 2025 Island Games.
This was a remarkable turnaround for the Isle of Wight team who had finished Day 5 with just 4 medals: 2 silver and 2 bronze.
The Isle of Wight monopolised the sailing medals taking all 3 availaible golds plus a bronze.
Arthur Farley won the ILCA 7 class at a canter with a perfect score of 9. Harry White took bronze in the same event after Ynys Mon’s Alistair Dickson was disqualified in the final race with the pair level on points. The silver medal went to Josh Metcalfe, also from Ynys Mon.
ICLA 6 was won by Oliver Mayo with 7 first place finishes, 1 second and a third, comfortably beating silver medallist Ines Maria Abreu Garcia by 21.5 points. The bronze medal went to the Caymen Islands’ Will Jackson. The Isle of Wight’s Oliver Smith finished 7th.
The performances of Arthur, Harry and the 2 Olivers were sufficient to earn a 3rd sailing gold medal for the Isle of Wight in the team event with Ynys Mon taking silver and Guernsey bronze.
The Isle of Wight won 4 golf medals: 2 gold and 2 bronze.
The ladies’ team of Sophie Beardsall, Lucy Burke, Caroline Johnson and Sammi Keen finished 29 strokes ahead of silver medallists Gotland and 43 ahead of bronze medallists Orkney. Sophie also won the individual event, beating Aland’s Emma Lindman by a single stroke.
The men’s team of George Foreman, Christopher Hayward, Conner Knight and Nathaniel Riddett took bronze behind gold medallists the Isle of Man and the Orkney silver medallists. Nathaniel also bagged bronze in the individual event behind 2 Isle of Man golfers – Daryll Callister and Robert Noon.
The Isle of Wight came away with 2 further podium places in the swimming pool. George Hayward struck gold in the 100metres Backstroke in a time of 55.61, 6 10ths of a second ahead of Will Sellars from the Cayman Islands in the silver medal position and bronze medallist Harry Robinson from the Isle of Man. George had already taken silver in the 50metres Backstroke earlier in the week when beaten by Robinson.
William Davidson bagged bronze in the 200metres Breastroke in a time of 2:21, behind gold medallist Filip Nowacki and silver medallist Oscar Dodds – both from Jersey.
On the athletics track, Sophie Hogton gained a silver medal for the Isle of Wight in the 100metres Hurdles finishing in 15.04 – 11 hundreth of a second behind gold medallist Rhiannon Dowinton from Jersey.
The Isle of Wight finally came good in football with our ladies’ team comprehensively beating their Orkney hosts 1-7 in the 9th-place playoff match. The goalscorers were: Daniela Melninkaite, Rowan Treagus, Kira Smith, Thea Broadhead, Daniela Melninkaite and Millie Tinsley (x2).
The Isle of Wight finished Day 6 in 7th place in the medals table with 15 podium places: 6 gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze. The Faroe Islands lead the medals table with 29 golds, Jersey are in 2nd place with 26 gold medals with Guernsey 3rd with 18 top spots.
