AS SPORTING success stories go domestically, it is highly debatable whether you can beat the one that is the Sportingbet Channel Islands Athletics Club.

Ten years ago, track and field in both Guernsey and Jersey was drifting, going nowhere.

Enter Andrew Winnie onto the CI scene, a tough and ambitious Scot who saw that on their own the two islands were not going to get anywhere, suggested they combine and then put in the man hours to ensure the project would work.

Today’s British League match at Foote’s Lane is the culmination of nearly a decade of hard work and while it is right to say it could not have been done without Winnie and a group of outstanding athletes who have lifted the sport’s profile to new levels, it could not have been done without Sportingbet.

There are good sponsors, there are average ones and there are those who are just not worth the time and money such is their tunnel vision in promoting themselves and not really caring a fig about the team or sport they are supposedly supporting.

The betting company worked wonders in getting Heather Watson to where she is today and you would not be witnessing Dale Garland, Lee Merrien and co running against classy opposition today without Sportingbet, who backed the CIAC target to have an athlete at the 2012 London Olympics and with Garland, Merrien and Jersey throwing star Zane Duquemin aboard, have a triple chance of achieving that target.

At some point CI athletics will, no doubt, have to stand on its own two feet, but with role models such as Garland, Merrien and Tom Druce around, the sport should remain an attractive proposition, especially as the junior development programmes in each island are producing a stream of well-coached talent.

The GIAAC coaching structure could hardly be better.

For any aspiring young athlete who better to guide you through the sport than Garland if you are a sprinter or jumper, Merrien if your event is 800 or 1,500 and Alan Rowe if it is long distance.

Even throwing is catered for by the multi-talented Garland, but sadly GIAAC do not have the culture for throwing as Jersey seem to have.

It is a perfect partnership.

From the word go which was in the Isle of Man Games of 2001, Winnie said ‘you provide the distance runners and we will provide the sprinters’.

Well, nine years on, it is more of a case of Guernsey filling the sprinting and distance roles, Jersey the jumping and throwing ones, certainly in the case of the more dominant men’s structure.

As for the women, the talent is there but keeping girls in the sport beyond 18 remains a problem, certainly in the power events where to become very good you need to bulk up and change shape.

Young women, understandably, tend not to want that.

That is an ongoing problem to be solved, but for now CI athletics should celebrate major advancements since the millennium and on its big day today – you would be foolish to miss it – it is a time to celebrate.

THE trouble with sport at this time of the year is, simply, there is too much of it.

The cricket Muratti in Jersey, British League athletics, the island bowls finals and three decent inter-island Jeremie Cup ties.

If Channel TV were to cover all of it we could Sky+ it and watch it all at our leisure.

I’m glad to be heading to Foote’s Lane for the athletics, but I will be seeking out regular updates from Grainville where a cracking one-day international beckons.

Who wins is too close to call, but at least Guernsey have given themselves every chance of retaining the trophy by an open-to-all selection policy and calling in Kiwi Iain Atchison to open the batting on debut.

I take our spinners to hold the key.

The combination of Jeremy Frith, Gary Rich, GH Smit and, perhaps, Tim Ravenscroft, will tie Jersey in knots.