The Island’s players, many of them relative novices, have been floored by the time they would have to take off from university or work – so the sport has pulled out of plans to attend.
It’s a decision that won’t have been taken lightly with the reaction to having been included in the biennial games, for the first time since Gibraltar 1995, having been initially extremely positive.
The sport’s Island Games representative, veteran André Bosio, who attended the Gibraltar Games, said: ‘Ten days is just too long, and the high cost also comes into it, so I don’t think judo will be going to Rhodes.
It’s a shame.
After we heard in Gibraltar that we were being dropped for the Jersey Games in 1997, we were devastated and lost a lot of players – it definitely put the sport back in the Island.
But the extra-time being taken to acclimatise for Rhodes just puts it beyond our players.’ However, Bob McGinnigle, chairman of the Island Games Association of Jersey, is still hopeful that judo will have a rethink should plans for some of the team to arrive later in Rhodes come to fruition.
