The Azores will participate in the 13th edition of the Island Games which will be held in Palma de Mallorca on the Balearic Islands from May 28 to May 30. These games will mobilise 1,200 youngsters as well as other members of their delegations from various insular regions of European countries.
The Regional Director for Sport, Rui Santos, presented the competition format and the composition of the Azorean delegation at a press conference that was held on Friday, revealing that the Azores will participate in men and women’s track and field (14), men’s basketball (12), men and women’s judo (6), men and women’s swimming (7), men and women’s tennis (6), men and women’s table tennis (6), men and women’s sailing (4) and women’s volleyball (12).
The Azorean delegation is composed by 94 members, 67 of which are athletes and 8 are coaches, the remaining members are sport leaders and members from the official delegation (14), referees (2), and a reporter team from the RTP-Açores TV station and a journalist from the newspaper Diário Insular who was recently awarded at the Azorean Sport Gala.
The Island of Terceira is the island with the largest number of athletes (28), followed by São Miguel (27), Pico (6), São Jorge (4) and Faial (2).
The Island Games take place in different insular regions every year. Teams are composed by youngsters up to the age of the cadets (according to the international rules).
The event intends to promote the creation of a spirit of European citizenship in the context of the Olympic ideal, which conveys to youngsters, through sport, a sport message based on fair play and on the respect for the others. Furthermore, it also allows the gathering of youngsters from different origins, but who have insularity as their common background.
The islands or regions that will participate at the “Mallorca 2009” games are the Azores, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, Cyprus, Corfu, Elba, Guadalupe, Jersey, Korkula, Mayotte, Malta, Martinique, Polynesia, Sardinia, Sicily and Wight.