The Isle of Man’s gymnasts led a magnificent Manx medal haul at the NatWest Island Games on Monday.

The Manx gymnasts were the undoubted stars of the show at the Sävehallen in Visby as they walked away with no fewer than eight gold medals, plus four silver and three bronze to propel Team IoM up the medal table.

Tara Donnelly led the local charge as she clinched a hat-trick of golds in the women’s SET individual beam, floor and fault, as well as helped the Isle of Man claim women’s team gold alongside Nicole Burns, Lucy Worthington, Emma Sutton, Chloe Donnelly and Madison Nicol.

Nick Harvey helped himself to double gold in the men’s high bar and parallel bars, while Callum Kewley and Glenn Yates did likewise in the vault and pommel respectively.

Emma Sutton joined Tara on the podium with silver in the vault, while Nicole Burns and Lucy Worthington - who was the island’s water carrier in the opening ceremony - claimed silver and bronze in the asymmetric bars respectively. Burn also notched up another silver in the floor behind Tara.

There was double joy for Mukunda Measuria as he bagged silver and bronze in the rings and pommel before he and his brother Harshul plus Harvey and Kewley claimed team bronze.

Away from gymnastics, it was also an excellent night for the island’s swimmers as they got their Games campaign off to a flying start.

Guy Davies thundered his way to a dominant gold in the men’s 100m breaststroke, also breaking the island record at both the 50m and 100m marks.

He was also part of the quartet alongside Alex Bregazzi, Brody Hewison and Joel Watterson which clinched silver in the 4x50m relay.

Bregazzi was in record-breaking form of his own as he beat the island’s previous best on his way to claiming bronze in the 200m individual medley.

Emma Hodgson, Laura Kinley, Olivia Marshall and Kazia Whittaker matched the men’s result in the 4x50m freestyle relay before Kinley and Steph Brew clinched silver and bronze respectively in the 50m breaststroke.

The Isle of Man badminton players claimed an excellent bronze medal in the team event thanks to a 3-1 win over the Faroe Islands.

The Manx team of Adam Colley, Neil Harding, Jessica and Abigail Li and Kim Clague were desperately unlucky not to progress to the gold medal match as they lost in dramatic fashion in the semi-finals.

They went up against Jersey and, thanks to wins at women’s singles and women’s doubles, went into the final contest 2-2, only to go down 21-19 in the mixed match to miss out on the final by the narrowest of margins.

They hit back in the bronze medal contest though, claiming wins at men’s and women’s singles plus the women’s doubles to seal the final step on the podium.

The isle of Man’s tennis players also enjoyed a cracking start to their Games, picking up silver and gold medals.

Laura Feely, Katie Harris and Karen Faragher proved unbeatable in the women’s team event at Slite to clinch a superb gold against Menorca in the final, while Faragher joined forces with Sean Drewry to claim silver in the mixed doubles.

After a successful first night at the athletics track, Team IoM were again in medal action at Gutavallen stadium in Visby on Monday evening.

Leading the way were Hannah Howard and Max Costley who both clinched bronze medals in their respective events, each achieving new personal bests.

Howard produced a gutsy run to claim a fine third in the 10,000m women’s race while team-mate Karen Shimmin also ran bravely to finish fifth.

Costley narrowly missed out on silver in the men’s 3,000m steeplechase as he produced a sprint finish to close down Guerney’s Ed Mason in the closing metres but the latter man held on and Costley was forced to settle for third one place ahead of team-mate Alan Corlett.

There was also success for the island’s shooters as Martin Cowley and Roger Winskill produced a fine score of 1074 to claim silver in the ISSF 25m Centrefire team event at the Svajde shooting range.