GUERNSEY’S Island Games competitors should view themselves as elite athletes as they prepare for the heat in Rhodes. That was the message from Dr Tom Jenkins, the governing body medical officer for the British Olympic rowing team, when he spoke to 200 of the local squad at the Peninsula Hotel.
Jenkins is an out-of-hours doctor in Guernsey while still working for British rowing and he will be going to the Games as medical officer for the island women’s football team.
The purpose of the meeting was to advise the competitors about the preparations required for competing in the anticipated 30C-plus temperatures. The heat issue was one of the main factors why the local men’s football team pulled out of the week-long Games.
Other speakers at the Peninsula were the Guernsey Island Games squad’s chief medical officer, Dr Jonny Pearce, who hosted the event, and the island’s Great Britain international athlete, Dale Garland, who also spoke about his experiences of competing in extremely hot environments.
‘They should think of themselves as elite athletes for the next three months and put everything else on hold,’ said Jenkins.
‘Cyclists should not just think about cycling when they are cycling but for 24 hours a day. They need to be integrating their life with their training.’
The meeting emphasized that the competitors needed to get used to hydrating and using other techniques such as applying sunscreen before they go to the Mediterranean island.
‘The two main concerns are that, first, we’re asking people to perform in conditions in which you and I would find just walking difficult and we could rest the next day, whereas these guys don’t have that option,’ said Jenkins. ‘And secondly, it’s conveying to these guys that they need to form habits for what they are going to experience before they get out there.’
Pearce said the event had gone well. ‘It was a very successful evening and I was really thrilled to see so many people there.
‘Two hundred were there and the total number of people travelling is 242. That shows a huge commitment.
‘It was quite a long thing. It went on for about 1hr 40min and they sat through the whole lot. I thought it was very enjoyable.’
One option now is for all the sports to be divided into sub-groups that will have their own preparations for the expected conditions.
There would be a group for the indoor sports such as basketball and volleyball, one for endurance events - cycling, the triathlon and the half-marathon - another for athletics and swimming and one for the more sedate sports such as archery and golf.
Basketball player-coach Jeff Stuart found the meeting very productive.
Although his competition will take place in an indoor air-conditioned facility, he thinks it will still be hotter than that to which he and his team are used to.
‘It was good and informative,’ he said. ‘It’s essential now that we meet as a team and see how it’s relevant to us. We were told that we would be assigned our own medical liaison.
‘The thing that was good was that there is such a high level of medical support for us.’
One issue that Stuart does have is with the travel arrangements.
After an early-afternoon ferry to St Malo on the Wednesday prior to the Games the team face a two-to-three-hour coach journey to Nantes, from where a chartered aircraft will fly them to the east Mediterranean island.
It is anticipated that the journey will take more than 10 hours and see the Sarnians reach their destination in the early hours of the morning.
‘The only concern for me was that they were saying how susceptible we would be to picking up illness and get sleep deprivation with our travel arrangements,’ he said. ‘It seems a concern, therefore, that we’re travelling through the night.’
Pearce said that was a fair point but they were the best arrangements possible.
‘It is a long trip and it is a hard trip and people do tend to pick up stuff because they have a low immunity [on long trips],’ he said.
‘I think people are going to be tired, fed up and drained when they get there. It’s a reasonable concern, but the decisions have been made.
‘We live in a real world and the Guernsey Island Games Association have done the best they can.’
Article posted on 4th April, 2007 - 12.00am
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