Island Games

I just learned from the radio that the 9th edition of the JIOI 2015, or Indian Ocean Island Games, started yesterday. This year's event is being held in La Réunion so I can't take any photos, and all my information comes from the internet research, but I had no idea this was a thing, and decided it was worth sharing.

Like the Olympics, the JIOI are held every four years. The participating islands are Mauritius, La Réunion, Madagascar, Seychelles, Comoros, Maldives, and Mayotte. This year there are over 200 athletes taking part in the fourteen different sports shown on the map below.

Merv and my Mother-in-Law say that every time the games take place, there are lots of arguments between the islands, especially La Réunion, Mayotte and Comoros. There's a lot of rivalry that I don't really understand, connected to their links with France (Réunion and Mayotte are French overseas departments, but Mayotte used to belong to Comoros) and even this year, the Comoros representative ordered his athletes to leave the stadium in the middle of the opening ceremony because he was angry that the athletes from Mayotte were wearing French colours.

The first JIOI were in 1979 and were supposed to encourage cooperation, respect and fraternity  between the island nations. In theory, it seems like a nice idea. In reality, when you have rich French departments competing against relatively poor countries such as Madagascar, it's a bit unfair. Réunion also has the advantage of people coming over from "la Métropole" and participating as islanders. 

The games are hosted on a rotation basis by the four biggest delegations; Réunion, Mauritius, Madagascar, and the Seychelles, and when it's their turn to host, each nation tries to modify the programme to include the sports in which they are most likely to win medals. The French, for example, are really good at handball, so they lobby constantly to put handball on the list of disciplines. Typical.

I'm disappointed I won't get to see any of the JIOI live. The next ones will be held in Mauritius, but I don't think we'll still be living here in 2019. I'll just have to support from a distance - Go Mauritius!!

Colours of Mauritius

Official JIOI logo