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Island Games: Guernsey's athletics boss urges hosting bid

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Guernsey's Island Games opening ceremony in 2003.

Guernsey Amateur Athletics Club president Alun Williams believes it is time for them to bid to host the Island Games again in order to inspire a new generation of sporting youngsters.

The island saw a big increase in the number of people taking part in sport after hosting the 2003 Games.

"If you look at our crop of 11-14 year olds, they'd be at peak age.

"What a fantastic goal they'd have if that was something we could deliver," Williams told ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Guernsey.

"We're now in a position where we have a fantastic athletics structure in place.

"We have a coaching structure that means we could really bring athletes on, we have officials who could run a top quality games like this tomorrow."

The Games will return to the Channel Islands in 2015, when Jersey play host - and the earliest Guernsey could stage the event would be 2023.

But last year Dave Inglis, the head of Guernsey's Island Games Association, said it was time to consider a bid - and Williams is backing his call.

"Certainly from an athletics club's point of view, we saw a huge benefit from the 2003 Island games," he continued.

"You could see evidence of that in some of the exercise surveys that were done with young people.

"You saw a real spike, similar to that of the 2012 Olympics."

Guernsey finished fifth in the medal table at the 2013 Island Games in Bermuda with 19 golds.

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