Nowacki's gold medal memory will 'last a lifetime'
Nowacki's gold medal memory will 'last a lifetime'
Brent Pilnick - BBC SportWed, July 29, 2026 at 1:16 PM UTC
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Filip Nowacki won Jersey's first Commonwealth Games gold medal since 1990 on Tuesday night
Filip Nowacki's Commonwealth Games gold medal will give him memories that will "stay with him for a lifetime", says Jersey's previous gold medallist.
Nowacki, 18, won the 200m breaststroke at Glasgow 2026 to end Jersey's 36-year wait for a gold medal.
Colin Mallett was the last person to top the podium for the island when he won fullbore shooting gold in Auckland in 1990, before going on to win bronze in the pairs with his father Cliff.
Between him and Nowacki they have won two-thirds of Jersey's six Commonwealth Games medals after Nowacki took silver in the 100m breaststroke on Saturday.
"The dedication that's needed, the commitment is just day-on-day, month-on-month, year-on-year," Mallett explained to BBC Jersey.
"Even at 18, Filip has probably been swimming for the majority of his life. It's just years and years of dedication."
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Mallett knows all about the dedication needed to succeed in sport having been the only person to win multiple medals for Jersey until this week.
He started shooting aged 12 and appeared at three more Commonwealth Games after his debut victory in Auckland.
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"It's a sport that runs in my family, from my father to my grandfather, great-grandfather and great-grandmother, so it was something that I took up, grew up with and lived with all my life," he said.
"I started shooting, got the bug for it, started doing fullbore shooting when I was 14 and went from there.
"I just had ambitions and desires after seeing my father shoot in the Commonwealth games in Edmonton in 1978 and Brisbane in 1982 and just wanted to do the same thing.
"I dedicated as much time as I could to try and achieve a dream."
Colin Mallett was given a hero's welcome when he arrived home in Jersey in February 1990
And despite Mallett never meeting Nowacki, there is a family connection.
His son first taught a young Nowacki to swim in 2014 - so his family can take some credit for helping Jersey claim Commonwealth gold.
"My son just happened to casually drop it in that he taught Filip to swim when he first started when he was six years old," Mallett explained.
"That kind of blew me away. I was like 'you never told me this', and he was like 'I had him in my class for two years when he was six' - and that was at Le Mourier Swim School.
"That was something I didn't know until I was actually watching him win."
Source: “AOL Sports”
