Father and son set to represent Guernsey

Orkney will be Darragh Lee's 8th Island Games and his 17-year-old son Cameron's first.

Darragh was part of the sailing team in Gibraltar in 1995 and went on to compete in Jersey, Gotland, Shetland, the Isle of Wight, Rhodes and Bermuda.

He had intended for Bermuda 2013 to be his island games swansong, as he felt he was getting too old for it.

In the twelve years between then and now he has tried triathlon and masters swimming.

But, just before the end of last year his son was in contention for an Island Games spot.

It made Darragh commit to trying to see if he could get back into the team again.

And here he is!

Darragh says: "It's awesome, it's one of my favourite things. I love it, the multisport event."

"So many faces have changed. I feel like one of the old men of the team."

"I think the biggest thing for me is I'm so proud to be doing this with Cameron."

But is hasn't been an easy road for Darragh, shortly after taking up triathlon and completing his first Granite Man event he ended up in intensive care, where he was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease.

It's a long-term condition where part of your gut becomes inflamed and kept him in hospital for two months.

Darragh went on to have four surgeries, a stoma, a resection of his gut and was in and out of hospital.

He says the thing that got him through was sport.

"If I wasn't fit from doing my triathlon, I could've been in a much worse situation and potentially not here. So that's quite cool what sport gives you in terms of health."

Swimming became crucial to his recovery and some healthy competition against his son, but he says it wasn't long before Cameron was beating him.

Cameron will be competing in the 50m,100m and 200m backstroke as well as the 100m butterfly.

He says he's feeling excited about the games: "It's going to be fun."

"I'm looking forward to pushing myself in the environment of the games."

Cameron's aim is to get some top 10 finishes, set some personal bests and maybe make some finals.

As for how he feels about his Dad being in the team too, Cameron says: It's good to know he'll be there."

"Not many others get that experience of being at the same games as a parent."