More than 150 athletes are jetting off in a variety of directions in July but are all bound for one destination ? the Shetland Isles.

So large is the athlete contingent competing in this year?s Island Games ? easily the biggest ever to compete for the Island in one event ? there are not enough spaces on British Airways to cope with the load.

This leaves the archer, cyclists, footballers, golfers, swimmers, gymnasts, sailors, badminton, volleyball and squash players having to disperse via New York and Philadelphia among other destinations to get to England, and then up to Scotland before chartering planes to take them to their floating hotel for a week of Olympic-style competition.

The biennial event will see Bermuda seek to improve on their fourth place finish in the medal table in their Games debut last time around and ?truly help athletes find their level?.

?This is a wonderful event for us to compete in,? said Jon Beard, the chairman of the Bermuda Island Games committee and the man who began lobbying eight years ago to get the Island involved.

?The Small Island Games truly is a level playing field. Although some of our athletes can compete at Olympic or Commonwealth level, it is rare that we have a medal hope at that standard of competition.

?But here, we are genuine medal contenders in every event. It gives us a chance to discover our international level and helps breed confidence in our athletes as they can be competitive across the board.?

Basketball and tennis players are heading out earlier and to a more luxurious destination, competing in an event two weeks before in Gibraltar due to a lack of facilities on Shetland. The triathlon, meanwhile, may be held in Bermuda in September.

This will be Bermuda?s second visit to the event, after the 2003 trip to Guernsey, but the Island is already cementing itself within the Island Games community.

They will compete in Rhodes in 2007, Yns Mon or Aland in 2009 and then possibly on home soil in 2011.

?It would be great to host the event here,? continued Beard, who has been swept along with the camaraderie of the event.

?There are a lot of things to look at, timing, which events we couldn?t host, volunteers and then the accommodation issue, but there is plenty of time for that.

?Another year seeing how the event is run will stand us in good stead for the future.

?It would be wonderful to host it here and allow the public to see a wide variety of sports with Bermuda competing for medals in every one.?

The size of the contingent allows Bermudians to support each other and watch their fellow competitors in the medal hunt.

?It will be great to see a whole volleyball team in their Bermuda tracksuits supporting our gymnasts or the squash players coming down to see the cyclists,? he gushed.

?There was such camaraderie because there is a big enough team for everyone to really get into the spirit of the thing. By the end of the week, you can?t tell who is from which country because everyone has swapped tracksuits and hats and every piece of clothing you can imagine.?

The peculiar location of Shetland is piling up the costs of the expedition, with each athlete ? or their association ? having to fork out $1,500 for the chance to compete with corporate sponsorship accounting for the other half.

Unfortunately not every sport can compete, with events like hockey left out because the founding members were not players of that sport, while track and field athletes are being denied by their association.

Even though both last time and on this occasion athletes were prepared to pay their own way to the event, competitors can only go with their association?s blessing, something the Bermuda Track and Field Association didn?t give because of other commitments.

?It?s always a shame when we can?t compete in any sport, but we are not going to go against the national governing bodies,? added Beard.

?Hopefully something can be sorted out for 2007. These events really can do something important for Bermuda sport, whether sports send their strongest teams or young, developmental ones.

?The next games in Rhodes should be a great chance for a lot of our new Olympic athletes to try out international competition in a multi-sport arena.?

Although Bermuda is one of the larger participants, limited to islands with populations up to 125,000, and can compete on a level playing field, even in this competition there are those who feel hard done by.

Places like the Falklands, with a population of around 10,000, compete for special certificates and have their own unofficial medal table for the small islands within the Small Island games.