Image source, Kirstin Shearer
Guernsey were third in the medals table at the 2025 Island Games in Orkney
Judo's return to the Island Games has been heralded as "amazing news" for the sport in Guernsey.
Judo is one of seven sports to be added to the programme in the Faroe Islands in 2027.
Also being added are basketball, shooting, table tennis, tennis, volleyball and beach volleyball after their omission in Orkney this summer.
But golf, sailing, lawn bowls and squash have all been omitted from the programme.
For judo it is the sport's first inclusion at an Island Games since Gibraltar in 2019, when Guernsey's five-strong side won a silver and two bronze medals.
"It's amazing news for the sport and for judo on Guernsey in itself," Guernsey Judo Club's Eddie Mann said.
"We had a sort of an idea maybe six months ago that it was possibly going to be in there, so we have initial discussions about who potentially could go."
He added to BBC Radio Guernsey: "It'll be a younger team that go across in 2027 compared to who went to Gibraltar.
"They'll be in their late teens a lot of them, early 20s, and they've got competitions ongoing throughout the year and going into the next couple of years."
But while some sports are celebrating, other sports will have to find alternative competitions in 2027, among them squash.
Guernsey sent three male players to the 2025 Island Games earlier this month - the fourth games in the last seven that the sport has been included.
"It was great that we were in this year, " said Martin Watts, Guernsey's development officer for squash.
"It really creates a buzz around the sport. Obviously there's only a limited number of people that can actually go to the Island Games, however those players train, they train with other players and everybody's looking at their results.
"So without that sort of buzz and that event to look forward to in the next couple of years, it makes it slightly more difficult for the players to train and focus on something."
He added: "We do have an alternative which is the European Team Championships.
"However that is just a team event, there's no individual bit, there's no doubles.
"So the Island Games being a mixed sport event adds something to it, it adds doubles as well, you have the team event, you have the individual event.
"So for the players that go and what it brings to our system, it really does raise the level and keep people's focus."
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