Rob McAllister took the overall title with three wins from the eight-race series while Ian Atkinson missed out on a bronze in the final race.Mike Millar and Alistair Varrie finished fifth and ninth respectively in the field of 20 to wrap up team gold ahead of Guernsey and Aland.Guernsey duo Tim Laine and Mike Birch took the other two individual medal positions.McAllister, who hasn’t raced in competition for more than a decade, was delighted with his performance – and that of his team-mates.
‘It’s great but it hasn’t had time to sink in yet,’ he said.
‘I didn’t know what to expect because I haven’t raced for 12 years.
I’m pleasantly surprised but the competition from the Guernsey guys, and Jersey, was tough.’The week started with light winds on the first day and that was hard.
I started badly because I took a wrong turn in the first race and got disqualified, but I came back to win the next two.’It was always on tenterhooks because you’ve got no buffer so it wasn’t over till the last race finished.
It was very good racing and a close competition.’Alistair has learned a tremendous amount this week and his improvement definitely helped us to win the team gold.’Guernsey have won that in every competition so to wrestle it from them is great because they’ve got a very strong team.’Every venue is different.
The current here is very strong and the wind was always off the land so it was gusty and very challenging.’I’d love to go to Shetland in two years’ time – I think it would be wild.
It sounds great, staying on a cruise ship near a remote island.’McAllister also paid tribute to Atkinson, who he described as ‘unbelievable, considering he’s had two open heart operations’.Varrie, who is competing in his first Island Games, said: ‘I’m stoked – it’s great.
I felt I did pretty good considering this was my first competition ever.
I slowly improved during the week.’One of the races I was leading which was a surprise but we got there in the end.
It took a while to get used to it in the early stages but I just had to get used to conditions.’Millar, who won the last race of the competition, added: ‘It’s excellent, really good, a great team effort.
Everybody’s points are added up together and you can lose a lot of points so it’s important that everyone was consistent.’
