Emblem Chosen,
pp. 41-43 · Read in the full issue
But Noumea Lags Over Games Plans
From Fred Dunn in Noumea The executive committee of the Second South Pacific Games, to be held in Noumea in Decem ber next year, has decided on an emblem for the Games. But other preparations for the
Games, particularly the building
of the sports arenas, do not seem to be progressing well.
THE emblem which the committee has fixed on for the Games was one of 132 designs submitted in a competition which closed on March 1. The entries came from all terri tories in the South Pacific. Many were from schoolchildren. There were also entries from Australia, but these were not eligible.
The winning entry was submitted by Mr. Andre Henry, a metropoli tan Frenchman, who heads a pub licity agency in Noumea. It depicts a tri-coloured pennant attached to a native totem. The pennant’s end sweeps round to form an athletic track.
Many of the other designs, includ ing those submitted by young ama teurs, would have seriously chal lenged the winning entry if they had been polished up.
This is apparent from an examination of the designs which are now on display in a Noumea store.
It therefore seems a shame that the contest was not closed to professional artists, as these artists certainly had the edge over amateurs even though it was stipulated that artistic merit counted for little in the contest.
The winning design is now the property of the organising committee.
It will be used on posters and pos sibly postage stamps and medals, and it will be made available to com mercial bodies interested in using it ?s a motif in souvenirs The organ lsinB committee will claim a per centage of the profits on such souvenirs.
The main reason for the slowness of progress over the building of the s P° rts arenas tor ,he Games is mone >'- According to a weekly Noumea
The winning Games emblem design.
paper, only 160 million Pacific francs (£800,000) are available for this work, whereas the only two tenders that are apparently worth consider ing are for 300 million francs (£H million) and 500 million francs (£2i million).
The tender for 300 million francs was made by a French firm in asso ciation with two New Caledonian firms, and the other came from a French firm which is now engaged on the Papeete harbour project.
The tenders are for seating accom modation and other buildings on the partly-constructed sports ground that was bought from a Noumea sports club as a Games venue, a swimming pool, and “mammoth” sports hall and gymnasium.
Plans for these facilities were pre pared by three architects after the Under-Secretary of the French Ministry for Youth and Sports, Mr.
Maurice Herzog, had counselled that they should be “built big” so that they would be “a reflection of the image of France in the Pacific”.
The architects’ plans were approved in principle by the authorities in Paris, and the tenders were then called. But because of certain guarantees required, no single con struction firm in New Caledonia sub mitted a tender, and not many came from France either.
Now, according to the article in the Noumea paper, there are two ways out of the present difficulty.
Either France must shell out more money for the Games projects (which cannot be hoped for), or the gran diose schemes must be whittled down to something that the available funds will cover.
All this, as the article points out, takes time. So if Noumea is to be ready for the Games in less than 18 months, the whittling of plans had better be done immediately and with not too many scruples about the per fection of the final result.
W. Samoa's Plans The Western Samoa Amateur Sports Federation has notified the organising committee of the Games that it hopes to send a contingent of 60 competitors and eight officials.
The team will be made up of five men, two women and one official in athletics; four men and four women (table tennis); four men and four women (tennis); eight men, eight women, one official (basketball); five men, one official (boxing).
The Federation will also send two delegates to the Games meeting to be held in Noumea at the same time as the games. The Western Samoan Government will send one delegate.