Island Games: Cayman swimmers finish with 14 medals

Four more medals on 13 July, the final day of racing in the pool at the 2023 Island Games, brought Cayman’s medal tally in the swimming events to 14.

Among that latest flurry of medals was another gold for Kyra Rabess, whose national record-setting swim at last month’s CAC Games proved to be just a warm-up for her performances in Guernsey.

Grabbing top spot in the women’s 800m freestyle in a new Island Games record time of 8:46.33, Rabess completed a hat-trick of gold medals, personal best times and Cayman Islands national records in the distance freestyle events, winning every individual race in which she competed at these Games.

Rabess once again finished clear of the field in Thursday’s 800m race, winning by a margin of over 13 seconds as she sliced more than a second off the decade-old Games record to cement her name in history.

With Rabess’ dominance in the distance freestyle events on display in Guernsey, her Cayman Islands and future University of Northern Colorado teammate Alison Jackson’s silver medal in the women’s 100m freestyle meant that Cayman had representation on every women’s freestyle podium at the Games.

Jackson, whose final time of 57.51 was just fractionally behind the gold medal-winning Gemma Atherley of Jersey, closed her 2023 Island Games account with an individual medal of each colour in the sprint freestyle events after winning the 50m freestyle and taking bronze in the 200m freestyle.

Making it onto the podium for the fourth day in a row, Will Sellars secured the fourth medal of his Island Games debut with a bronze in the men’s 100m backstroke. Stopping the clock at 57.69, that swim marks another personal best for Sellars in what was his seventh individual event of the Games.

To bring the swimming proceedings to a close, Jackson and Rabess stepped up alongside Thomas Ferguson and Jake Bailey to deliver a bronze medal in the mixed 4x50m freestyle relay.

In an exhilarating final race filled with strategy – each team must have two men and two women, but the exact order is left to choice – strong 50m splits from Ferguson (24.02), Bailey (23.38) and Jackson (25.72) left the team’s fate in the hands of Rabess, who shook off a week of long-distance swimming to throw down a 25.55 split, holding off the charging Joel Watterson of the Isle of Man to capture bronze by 0.01 seconds.

With a final medal count of 14 (five gold, three silver, six bronze), the 2023 Island Games has been one to remember for Cayman swimming.