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The 'International Island Games Association' (IGA) is an organization the sole purpose of which is to organise the 'Island Games', a friendly biennial athletic competition between teams from several islands. The IGA liaises with the member island associations and with sponsors of the games. It investigates whether islands wanting to join fit the membership criteria. Any further additions since Menorca joined in 2005 will now require changes to the constitution.

Contents

The Island Games

Members

Game venues

Sports

External links

The Island Games

The 'Island Games', began in 1985 as the 'Inter-Island Games' and as part of the Isle of Man International Year of Sport and were intended to be a one-off sporting celebration only. Geoffrey Corlett who became the first Games Director, contacted not only the Islands surrounding Great Britain but encouraged the Scandinavians, Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Saint Helena and others to participate. Initially 15 Islands, with 600 competitors and officials took part in 7 sports, with the total cost of staging the Games being put at 70,000 pounds. The track and field events were held on an 8 lane grass track, a far cry from actual games, and which now boasts a new synthetic track in a stadium capable of holding 10,000 spectators. So successful were the Games of '85 that it was decided to hold a similar event 2 years later.

Members

The IGA was founded in the Isle of Man in 1985. Its members currently are:

★ Åland ★ Alderney ★ Bermuda ★ Cayman Islands ★ Falkland Islands ★ Faroe Islands ★ Frøya ★ Gibraltar ★ Gotland

★ Greenland ★ Guernsey ★ Hitra ★ Isle of Man ★ Isle of Wight ★ Jersey ★ Minorca ★ Western Isles (Outer Hebrides)

★ Orkney Islands ★ Prince Edward Island ★ Rhodes ★ Saaremaa ★ Sark ★ Shetland Islands ★ Saint Helena ★ Ynys Môn/Anglesey

Game venues

Year	Games	Host Island	Country
1985	I	Isle of Man	British crown dependency
1987	II	Guernsey	British crown dependency
1989	III	Faroe Islands	Faroe Islands
1991	IV	Åland	Finland
1993	V	Isle of Wight	England
1995	VI	Gibraltar	British overseas territory
1997	VII	Jersey	British crown dependency
1999	VIII	Gotland	Sweden
2001	IX	Isle of Man	British crown dependency
2003	X	Guernsey	British crown dependency
2005	XI	Shetland	Scotland
2007	XII	Rhodes	Greece
2009	''XIII''	''Åland''	''Finland''
2011	''XIV''	''Isle of Wight''	''England''
''2013''	''XV''	''Bermuda or Prince Edward Island''

Sports

The host country chooses between 12 and 14 different sports for their games from this list:

★ Archery ★ Athletics ★ Badminton ★ Basketball ★ Bowls ★ Cycling

★ Football ★ Golf ★ Gymnastics ★ Judo ★ Sailing ★ Shooting

★ Squash ★ Swimming ★ Table Tennis ★ Tennis ★ Triathlon ★ Volleyball

External links

★ IslandGames.net

★ The 2007 Island Games was hosted in Rhodes, Greece