Three Legs of Mann

I only managed half an hour at the Döhle Isle of Man Track and Field Championships yesterday but I saw enough to support what people have been saying on the forum – that the overall atmosphere was better than for a number of years. Numbers are still worryingly thin in the senior events but there was a very high standard, and great sportsmanship, in some of the junior events. The results were published promptly by Cheryl Pryke on each of the two days on the www.iomaa.info site. I’m no longer taking photos of track of field meetings but there are plenty to be seen on the aforementioned site.

We can spend years helping to develop talent but it is only once in a lifetime, or maybe even once in a millennium, that an island with a population of 80,000 can expect to produce a sportsman as exceptional as Mark Cavendish. His 15^th stage win in the Tour de France yesterday afternoon made a mockery of the opposition and Chris Boardman described him as the best sprinter ever. He really has put the Isle of Man on the map.

Not that we need putting on the map. After all we have been right in the middle of the map of the British Isles for the past millennium and more. It is strange that so many people confuse our fair isle with one that hosted a famous pop festival or think we are close to Jersey and Guernsey. BBC2’s Coast programme, the first in a new series, used the position very cleverly last night to move back and forwards from our central position to the five countries around us – the ones with less successful cyclists and without a thriving junior athletics scene.

We have a thriving athletics scene, we’ve all seen Mark Cavendish star in France and the TV also showed the best scenery in the British Isles is right in the middle. I saw a little of all three Legs of Mann yesterday.