Bermuda missed out on the chance to host its largest sporting event in history, when the Isle of Wight won the right to host the 2011 Island Games.

At the Island Games Federation AGM in Rhodes, venue for next year?s event, the member islands voted 30-25 to hand the $3m event to the British island.

Despite months of preparation ? and $20,000 of investment in the multimedia bid and presentation ? Bermuda?s efforts to host the event, which would have brought the best part of 3,000 competitors and officials to the Island for 14 sports that summer, failed at the final hurdle.

The IGF executive had backed the Isle of Wight ? as had Olympian turned politician and the man behind the 2012 London Olympic bid Lord Sebestian Coe ? for reasons of cost, lack of Government support and Bermuda?s relative youth in the Island Games movement.

Jon Beard, the Island Games Committee president here, had been confident that following two presentations in Rhodes at the back end of last week ? and the support of the ?world?s most enthusiastic sports minister? Dale Butler ? they would have won round sufficient voters to give Bermuda the nod.

But this was not to be the case and Bermuda missed out by just a handful of crucial votes.