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Saturday 19th July 2025, Our 45th games - a dry and bright day that was a lovely change from the challenges the weather has sent us in previous years.  Everyone was in high spirits after a long week of set up that saw a great turnout from our local community to get things ready. 

Our chieftain and chair of the Highland Games, Joanna Macpherson opened the event with her family supporting. We lost her father, Ewen Macpherson late last year, he had been a long-standing supporter and champion of the Highland Games tradition and is much missed. 2025 marks the start of a new era for us. We had a wonderful opening ceremony with family, band, dancers and singers all joining in to the delight of the crowd. 

A real buzz, with a large crowd of guests from all over the world.

 

A few firsts:

A small group of the Gaelic studies children from Lochcarron Primary School took to the stage to perform a couple of traditional acapella Gaelic songs. This was a surprise for our crowd and they went down a treat – the singers were Alasdair Finlayson, Ishy Finlayson, Ceitidh Finlayson, Katie Murray, Isabella Bartlett, Georgina Bartlett and Minnie Milton. 

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For the first time ever, we were treated to a skills demonstration by a team of Ladies Heavies.  This was a special invitation only event as Jackie Sears, Angie Grant and Claire Wallace started the day with a great showcase of the Ladies Heavy Skills. It was a wonderful start to the day, as we look to develop the Ladies Heavies as part of the main programme for future Lochcarron Games. 

We had a fantastic turnout in the Mens Heavy Events - with 6 top competitors fighting it out for the prizes  - many thanks to our main sponsor Bakkafrost who provide the prizemoney for this event. 

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We were fortunate to have returning champion Jamie Gunn from Halkirk, along with Harry Zagorski from Alness back for his 2nd event at Lochcarron. We also welcomed Czech Tomas Suchopar, Hein Vom Beunningem from Maastricht, John McLeod from Lochinver and Vlad Tulacek from Teplice. It was an astonishing display of skills and strength from all the guys, although Vlad took a commanding lead and broke ground records in 5 categories! He came first with new records in the Shot, Hammer, Heavy Hammer, Heavyweight for Distance and Weight for Height. Jamie Gunn took first place in the Weight for Distance event. Vlad came out overall lead Heavy, and just for good measure won the Caber challenge and narrowly missed out on a world record on the Weight for Height event!!! What a day...

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The Lochcarron Games Hill Race – with 79 intrepid runners, Inverness runner Philip Vokes broke the longstanding record by 17 seconds, completing the 2.4m course in a speedy 18 minutes and 53 seconds!

In the athletics arena, the 800m Scottish Championship race was won by Douglas Bringhurst.  The 400m Open was won by Callum Letham who also achieved a ground record for this event, in a time of 53:84.  Best track Athletes: Callum Letham won by a narrow 1 point margin and Daisy Hendry was first in the ladies category. 

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Great performances by The Isle of Skye Pipe Band and dancers from Skye Highland Dancers - both of whom travel a significant distance to be a part of our day! It wouldn't be a Highland Games without them.

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We had a great array of local crafts, specialist producers, food & drink - it was a busy day for everyone, especially our local Ice Cream van.

Family entertainment was provided by the team at Lochcarron Sailing Club who created a free of charge family games area. Displays also by Kintail Mountain Rescue and Lochcarron Fire & Rescue. 

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Bakkafrost are the lead sponsor and are critical to the ongoing success and viability of our Games. They also provide a large supply of fresh salmon which is used to feed our army of volunteers and visitors such as the field judges, dancers and pipe band – a very important part of the day for many people!