Will Draper produced a cracking performance to win the Rocquaine Olympic distance triathlon in Guernsey the Sunday before last.

Making good use of the recently-established air corridor between the two islands, he travelled over on the direct flight the previous Wednesday.

He first took part in a swim-run event for pairs involving four runs and three swims back-to-back totalling approximately 45 minutes of racing.

Teaming up with Island Games competitor James Travers of Guernsey, the duo won the event.

On Friday morning Draper rode a 10-mile time trial, finishing runner-up among a strong field of local riders.

The main event was on Sunday, forming an Island Games qualifier for the Guernsey triathletes, held over the course to be used next summer - if indeed the Games take place at all.

The swim was in choppy conditions and the 20-year-old Manxman was fourth out of the water, 45 seconds down on the leaders.

Within the first lap of three on the bike he had already caught his rivals and then simply rode away from them with a strong, controlled performance.

He arrived at the second transition well ahead of the field, and then produced consistent splits across each mile to finish the 10km run in a time of 33min 15sec.

’I’m confident if someone had been ahead of me on the bike and run that I could have found another minute or two; with another year of training maybe even more than that,’ said Will.

As it was, his overall time was enough to give him a winning margin of almost eight minutes.

The standard of competition was good, Travers - who Draper had teamed up with a couple of days earlier - finished fourth on the day (he was seventh in last year’s Island Games event in Gibraltar).