Host Gibraltar Athletes participating 2,000 Website gibraltar2019.com | Teams participating 24 islands Events 14 sports | |
The XVIII Island Games (also known as the 2019 NatWest Island Games for sponsorship reasons) will be held in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar in summer 2019. This will be the second time that the nation has hosted the games, the first being in 1995.
Contents
Controversially the games will not include cycling, football or volleyball which have been in all previous games since 1985 due to the lack of venues, instead replaced by tenpin bowling, judo and squash.
Host
The Faroe Islands were initially scheduled to stage the 2019 games, with the 2021 games taking place in Minorca, but in 2014 the hosts were swapped following issues with the Faroese facilities being ready in time. Minorca then withdrew from hosting the 2019 games in July 2015 following a change in government. After the Isle of Man and 2015 hosts Jersey confirmed that they would not apply as replacements, Gibraltar announced in August their intention to host the games, and were officially announced as hosts in April 2016. Gibraltar has appointed an executive committee to manage the event.
Participating islands
It is likely that 24 island entities of the IIGA, from Europe, South Atlantic and the Caribbean area, will compete in these Games.
Sports
Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of medal events contested in each sport.