Island Games

Island Games

The International Island Games Association is an organisation whose purpose is to organise the Island Games, a biennial multi-sports competition between teams from several European islands and other small territories

History

The Island Games began in 1985 as the Inter-Island Games, as part of the Isle of Man International Year of Sport, and were intended to be a one-off sporting celebration. Geoffrey Corlett, who became the first games director, not only contacted the islands surrounding the United Kingdom, but also encouraged the countries of Iceland and Malta, the territories of Faroe Islands, Greenland, Saint Helena and others to participate.

15 islands with 600 competitors and officials took part in seven sports, with the total cost of staging the games put at £70,000. The track and field events were held on an eight-lane grass track, a far cry from the current games, which now use a synthetic track in a stadium capable of holding 10,000 spectators. So successful were the Games of 1985 that it was decided to hold a similar event two years later.

There are now 23 members ^[1] and the host country can select between 12 and 14 of 16 sports. None have been chosen for every games; only four have been chosen 16 times - athletics, swimming, shooting and volleyball.

The 2021 games were scheduled for Guernsey but were postponed because of Covid. Guernsey will now host in 2023 and subsequent hostings have all been pushed back two years.

Members

The IGA was founded in the Isle of Man in 1985. Constituents come from islands in, or associated with, nine sovereign states (Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).

Current members of the IGA are:


Åland	Alderney	Anglesey	Bermuda	Cayman Islands
Falkland Islands	Faroe Islands	Frøya	Gibraltar	Gotland
Greenland	Guernsey	Hitra	Isle of Man	Isle of Wight
Jersey	Minorca	Orkney Islands
Saaremaa	Saint Helena	Sark	Shetland Islands	Western Isles

Gibraltar is the only member of the IGA that is not an island or group of islands as it is a peninsula of Iberia, sharing a land border with Spain. Anglesey, Hitra, and Prince Edward Island have bridge or tunnel connections to their mainland. Greenland is by far the largest island, and is bigger than all the rest combined, but very sparsely populated.

Game venues

Year	Games	Host Island	Country
1985	I	Isle of Man	British crown dependency
1987	II	Guernsey	British crown dependency
1989	III	Faroe Islands	Danish autonomous province
1991	IV	Åland	Finnish autonomous province
1993	V	Isle of Wight	English county
1995	VI	Gibraltar	British overseas territory
1997	VII	Jersey	British crown dependency
1999	VIII	Gotland	Swedish county
2001	IX	Isle of Man	British crown dependency
2003	X	Guernsey	British crown dependency
2005	XI	Shetland	Scottish county
2007	XII	Rhodes	Greek island
2009	XIII	Åland	Finnish autonomous province
2011	XIV	Isle of Wight	English county
2013	XV	Bermuda	British overseas territory
2015	XVI	Jersey	British crown dependency
2017	XVII	Gotland	Swedish county
2019	XVIII	Gibraltar	British overseas territory
2023	XIX	Guernsey	British crown dependency

Sports

The host country chooses between 12 and 14 different sports for their games from this list:


Archery	Athletics	Badminton	Basketball	Bowls	Cycling
Football	Golf	Gymnastics	Judo	Sailing	Shooting
Squash	Swimming	Table Tennis	Tennis	Triathlon	Volleyball

Medals table

Including medals won in the 2009 edition. This list will be updated when time permits. The latest table of participants and medals won can be seen by following the link to the Wikipedia entry at the bottom of this page

Island Games medal count
Pos	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Jersey	396	377	357	1130
2	Isle of Man	317	311	333	961
3	Guernsey	294	308	338	940
4	Gotland	199	161	149	509
5	Faroe Islands	142	135	168	445
6	Åland	139	153	121	413
7	Isle of Wight}	133	123	161	417
8	Cayman Islands}	57	37	41	135
9	Saaremaa	56	67	64	187
10	Bermuda	53	49	54	156
11	Iceland	50	45	41	136
12	Rhodes	50	42	42	134
13	Gibraltar	38	43	69	150
14	Shetland Islands	30	48	77	155
15	Minorca	20	17	21	58
16	Orkney	18	29	36	83
17	Anglesey	17	28	38	83
18	Greenland	15	18	25	58
19	Prince Edward Island	6	6	9	21
20	Malta	6	2	2	10
21	Western Isles	2	4	11	17
22	Sark	1	7	5	13
23	Falkland Islands	1	5	11	17
24	Hitra	1	2	0	3
25	Frøya	1	1	2	4
26	Alderney	0	2	3	5
27	Saint Helena	0	0	2	2

From 2001, competitors from islands with a population of less than 10,000 (Alderney, Falklands, Frøya, Hitra, St. Helena and Sark), also compete for Gold, Silver and Bronze 'Small Island Certificates', with restrictions that Silver is only awarded if at least 3 compete, and Bronze only if at least 4 compete.