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Thursday, 23rd March 2006

The past few days have been seen some great Commonwealth Games action. World records have been smashed in the pool by some of the best swimmers in the world, mostly the Australian women, while the Jamaican sprinters have taken on all comers at the MCG. Watching Asafa Powell, the fastest man in the world, stroll to the 100m title was a real treat for an appreciative crowd a few days ago.

Listening to the local TV commentators, you'd think these were the Australian Games rather than the Commonwealth Games though; it has been a real ‘Ausfest' for them!

But they have praised the smaller ‘nations', especially Jersey's swimmers. The commentators recognised the talent they have, despite the fact they come from a small island and therefore a small pool (no pun or irony intended) of swimmers.

Much has also been said of the Aussie support at these Games, which seems to have spurred them on to win more medals than ever. Thunderous applause whenever an Aussie is about to compete followed by ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi' has reverberated around the packed stadiums each day.

The sport of star spotting also seems to have been introduced this week. Linford Christie, Jonathan Edwards and the great Michael Johnson have been spotted out and about in Melbourne.

Martin Hebden was telling me how he'd spoken with Lord Sebastian Coe at his hotel recently. Seb Coe, totally unprompted, mentioned how smart the Jersey team were at the opening ceremony. Confirmation, if it was needed, that the organising committee got the uniforms spot on.

I've also briefly chatted to Steve Cram, Sue Barker, Sharon Davies, Colin Jackson, Adrian Moorhouse, Viv Richards and taken a picture of a startled Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, at the Athletes' Village.

And that's without me mentioning that fact that I sat just 20 metres away from the Queen, although she chose to ignore my shouts of ‘Hello Your Majesty'!

In action for Jersey today have been Karina Bisson and Allan Quemard in the singles of the lawn bowls, but both just missed out on a quarter-final spot.

The shooters have also been on the range over the past few days. David Turner, Kevin de Gruchy and Steve Le Couilliard have all performed well, but without really getting near a medal opportunity.

David Ward and Marcus Hill finish their events on Saturday, having come up against some talented Indian, Australian and English shooters, while the final event of the forebore saw Richard Benest and David Le Quesne finish below the medal positions.

Tonight, Liz Cann and Solenn Pasturel compete in the last 16 of the badminton singles, having seen the rest of the team already knocked out.