AIB Tigers dominated Friday’s annual Green Island to Havre des Pas swim, with Emma Glendenning setting a new women’s record of 29.56 min and Tom Gallichan winning the men’s race in 27.55.
However, Island swimmer Daniel Halksworth almost certainly sacrificed first place by slowing down to help Tom’s older brother, JJ Gallichan, to finish the race as, suffering from hypothermia, he had to be nursed over the final few hundred yards and was then lifted out of the water before St John Ambulance took him to hospital.
There was added drama in the women’s race when Iona Sweet, a member of the JSC women’s team which won the Club Trophy and who finished 14th, also needed assistance when she climbed out of the water. Lifeguards and a paramedic looked after her before she, too, was taken to hospital, this time courtesy of a States ambulance.
Both swimmers were eventually released with a clean bill of health.
‘JJ looked to be in a bad way,’ said JSC vice-president Carole Penfold afterwards, ‘but then both he and his brother are only slightly built. As it is, I admire Daniel for the way he helped him towards the end when he probably could have won the race himself.’ The men’s record of 26.44, set in 1989, never looked like being beaten, but the women’s record of 30.24 was smashed by Glendenning, who next has her sights on the Youth Commonwealth Games.
