The Isle of Man was represented at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne by a 36-member strong contingent, comprising 27 sportsmen and women and 9 officials. Amongst their number was the Commonwealth Games' youngest ever competitor, Olivia Rawlinson, a swimmer aged 13. The team captain was Dane Harrop, while the flag bearer was Harry Creevy, a rifle shooter.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground was decorated with creatures to represent the participating countries; the Isle of Man's creature is a basking shark, owing to the high number of sightings of the species in Manx waters.
At the 2006 Games, the Isle of Man finished in joint-nineteenth place, winning two medals, including a gold, won by Mark Cavendish. This brought the Isle of Man's total medals won to nine since it first took part in Cardiff in 1958. Before Mark Cavendish won gold in Melbourne, Man had not claimed a gold since 1986, when Nigel Kelly won the shooting individual men's skeet in Edinburgh.
The Commonwealth Games is a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which mostly consists of territories of the former British Empire. The event was first held in 1930 and, with the exception of 1942 and 1946, has successively run every four years since. The event was called the British Empire Games from 1930 to 1950, the British Empire and Commonwealth Games from 1954 to 1966, and British Commonwealth Games from 1970 to 1974. Athletes with a disability are included as full members of their national teams since 2002, making the Commonwealth Games the first fully inclusive international multi-sport event. In 2018, the Games became the first global multi-sport event to feature an equal number of men's and women's medal events, and four years later they became the first global multi-sport event to have more events for women than men.
The 1956 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, from 22 November to 8 December 1956, with the exception of the equestrian events, which were held in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 1956.
The 2006 Commonwealth Games, officially the XVIII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Melbourne 2006, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth held in Melbourne, Australia between 15 and 26 March 2006. It was the fourth time Australia had hosted the Commonwealth Games. It was also the largest sporting event to be staged in Melbourne, eclipsing the 1956 Summer Olympics in terms of the number of teams competing, athletes competing, and events being held.
At the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the athletics events were held in Melbourne, Australia from 19 March to 25 March 2006. A total of 47 events were contested, of which 24 by male and 23 by female athletes. Furthermore, three men's and three women's disability events were held within the programme. All athletics events took place within the Melbourne Cricket Ground, while the marathon and racewalking events took place on the streets of Melbourne and finished at the main stadium.
Bangladesh was represented at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne by 19 athletes competing in 5 disciplines. They won one medal, in shooting.
Samaresh Jung is an Indian sport shooter. He is an air pistol specialist. At the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, he won two gold medals, in the men's free pistol pairs and in the open event of 25 m standard pistol pairs, both in partnership with Jaspal Rana. He contested in the 10 m air pistol and 50 m pistol events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, but failed to reach the finals in both events.
Australia first competed at the Games, then titled the British Empire Games, in 1930; and is one of only six countries to have sent athletes to every Commonwealth Games. The others are Canada, England, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales. Australian athletes competed for Australasia at the 1911 Festival of the Empire, the forerunner to the British Empire Games.
For a small country, sport in the Isle of Man plays an important part in making the island known to the wider world. The principal international sporting event held on the island is the annual Isle of Man TT motorcycling event. However, the Isle of Man is represented internationally in a number of other sports at the Commonwealth Games and the Island Games.
Glyn Cawley Daer Barnett, is a male British international rifleman who won a shooting gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
Guernsey participates in its own right in the Commonwealth Games.
Russell Andrew Mark, is an Australian Olympic Champion Shooter. He won the Olympic gold medal in double trap at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He also won an Olympic silver medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. He has competed at six Olympic Games: 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012. The only Australian Summer Olympian to compete in more Olympiads is Andrew Hoy (seven).
Peter Robert Kennaugh MBE is a Manx former professional racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2010 and 2019 for Team Sky and Bora–Hansgrohe. In 2012 he won the gold medal as part of the Great Britain Team Pursuit team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, becoming the first Manxman in 100 years to win gold. On 5 April 2019, he announced that he was taking an indefinite break from professional cycling to focus on his mental health.
The following article outlines the highlights of the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Hendri Kurniawan Saputra is an Indonesian-born Singaporean retired badminton player.
Michael Gault OBE, is an English sport shooter. He has competed at the Commonwealth Games on six occasions winning eighteen medals, a record for athletes in any sport that he jointly holds with Australian shooter Phillip Adams, but has never been selected for the British Olympic team. Gault also won two ISSF World Cup bronze medals whilst representing Great Britain.
Jeremy Norman Henry is a former Irish and current Australian lawn and indoor bowler born in Northern Ireland.
Timothy Kneale is a Manx sport shooter who specializes in the double trap. He is the current world record holder for the event, having scored 148 out of 150 at the 2014 ISSF World Cup meet in Munich, Germany. Apart from his world-record feat, Kneale has won two medals in a major international competition, a silver at the 2015 World Shotgun Championships and a bronze as a representative of the Isle of Man team at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.
Harry Creevy is a British sports shooter. Creevy represented Great Britain at three ISSF World Shooting Championships and 11 World Cups, as well as representing the Isle of Man at eight Commonwealth Games, multiple Commonwealth Shooting Championships and Island Games.
Isle of Man competed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Australia from April 4 to April 15, 2018. Isle of Man announced it would send a squad of 32 athletes. However, Mark Cavendish did not compete.
The Isle of Man competed at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England between 28 July and 8 August 2022. Having made its Games debut in 1958, it was the Isle of Man's seventeenth appearance at the Games.
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