The Isle of Man’s swimmers grabbed an opening-night medal haul of five on Monday evening as the Island Games swimming gala got underway.

The squad are always among the favourites and so it proved again at the Pickaquoy Centre pool in Kirkwall as the Manx team opened up with five medals including two golds and an Island Games record.

The latter was set in the final event of the night, the men’s 4x50m medley relay.

The Manx team of Harry Robinson, Alexander Turnbull, Joel Watterson and Magnus Kelly were in scintillating form as they swept to victory in a time of 1 minute 39.10 seconds.

This was inside the previous Games record of 1:40.84s set by Jersey in 2015.

It was also a couple of seconds quicker than the time the Manx team posted in the morning, when they had finished the fastest in the heats and set a new Isle of Man record for the event.

It was the third successive time the Isle of Man has won the event having triumphed in Guernsey and Gibraltar, 26-year-old Watterson being part of the team in all three.

Robinson grabbed the team’s other gold in the 50m backstroke, the Commonwealth Games swimmer looking comfortable as the 20 year old swept to victory in a time of 24.43s.

Laura Kinley got her seventh Island Games off to a great start with silver in the women’s 50m breaststroke.

The 29-year-old finished behind the Western Isles Kara Hanlon who broke the Games record on her way to gold.

Kinely’s time of 31.67s was the fastest she’s swam this year.

There were a couple more bronze medals for Alexander Turnbull and Lauren Dennett.

Turnbull was third in the men’s 100m breaststroke while Dennett finished on the final podium place in the women’s 200m freestyle. Compatriot Kiera Prentice finished fifth in the latter race.