International Island Games Association
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "International_Island_Games_Association".

The International Island Games Association (IGA) is an organisation the sole purpose of which is to organise the Island Games, a friendly biennial athletic competition between teams from several islands and other small territories. 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 Minorca joined in 2005 will now require changes to the constitution.

History

The Island Games began in 1985 as the Inter-Island Games, 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 the United Kingdom, but also encouraged Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Saint Helena and others to participate. Initially, fifteen islands with 600 competitors and officials took part in seven sports, with the total cost of staging the Games being put at £70,000. The track and field events were held on an eight lane grass track, a far cry from the current games, and which now use a synthetic track in a stadium capable of holding 10,000 spectators. So successful were the Games of 1985 that it was decided to hold a similar event two years later.

Members

The IGA was founded in the Isle of Man in 1985. Constituents come from islands in, or associated with, nine sovereign nations (Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).

Current members of the IGA are:

Gibraltar is the only member of the IGA that is not an island or group of islands (it is a peninsula of Iberia, sharing a 1.2 km land border with Spain).

Game venues

Faroeese stamp to the 1989 Island Games: Rowing

Football

Sports

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

Medals table

Island Games medal count

Pos	Country
1	Jersey	372	340	338
2	Isle of Man	288	281	304
3	Guernsey	273	296	311
4	Gotland	178	150	126
5	Isle of Wight	129	117	153
6	Åland	123	134	103
7	Faroe Islands	108	112	144
8	Saaremaa	50	58	54
9	Iceland	50	45	41
10	Cayman Islands	50	33	38
11	Rhodes	47	34	35
12	Bermuda	39	43	42
13	Gibraltar	34	40	61
14	Shetland Islands	28	47	70
15	Orkney	17	27	33
16	Anglesey	16	26	36
17	Greenland	14	14	22
18	Minorca	11	10	10
19	Prince Edward Island	6	6	9
20	Malta	6	2	2
21	Sark	1	7	3
22	Falkland Islands	1	5	11
23	Western Isles	1	2	9
24	Frøya	1	1	2
25	Hitra	1	0	0
26	Alderney	0	2	3
27	Saint Helena	0	0	2

From 2001, competitors from islands with a population of less than 10,000 (Alderney, Falklands, Froya, Hitra, St. Helena and Sark), also compete for Gold, Silver and Bronze 'Small Island Certificates', with restrictions that Silver is only awarded if at least 3 compete, and Bronze only if at least 4 compete.

External links

• IslandGames.net
• The 2007 Island Games was hosted in Rhodes, Greece

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