New Caledonia
pp. 16-17 · Read in the full issue
And Fiji In
Games Warm Up
• Lessons Learned For December in Noumea From Alan Spark in Suva
Everything was peaches and
cream in Suva on Saturday, January 22, when the final re sult of an athletics match be tween Fiji and New Caledonia was declared.
IT was a draw—l4o points each after a series of 26 competition events, which began the previous Saturday.
The match was a warm-up for the South Pacific Games in Noumea in December, when Fiji and New Caledonia are expected to field two of the strongest teams.
Competition was keen and the result was fairly satisfying. But had Fiji wished to press to have New Caledonia disqualified in two of the relay events, it may have won the match—thus taking the glory but losing much of the friendly spirit which was a feature of the series.
Tremendous Success
There can be no doubt that the visit by the New Caledonians was a tremendous success. An aggregate of more than 5,000 people watched the two official meetings and the two informal meetings in between them.
Fiji learned some useful lessons from the meeting, namely that: • New Caledonia has a solid nucleus of well-trained distance run ners who recognise the merits of run ning as a team; and it also has some well-trained and talented field events exponents. • If the Colony is to have effective relay teams the runners must be well grounded in the techniques of changing the baton, for this cost Fiji two relays and very nearly a third. There is a major problem in this, however, it is almost impos sible to get the athletes together in Suva for training.
New Caledonia found that Fiji has an abundance of natural talent, but that many athletes are self-trained and without the benefit of qualified coaching.
It also found that once the benefits of team-running are demonstrated to
Fiji’s distance runners, they are quick to learn. The difference from one Saturday to the other in the tactics employed by Fiji runners was quite astounding.
New Caledonian officials were ex tremely interested in the staging of the meeting, as they will have a much larger meeting to organise at the end of the year.
Ana Does It Again
Undoubtedly, the most successful athlete was Ana Ramacake. Nobody had really expected her to be beaten in the sprints and the long jump, and nobody was disappointed.
She was so far ahead in the sprints, especially the 200 metres, that it ap peared as if there were two separate races—Ana racing against the clock and the others fighting out the minor places.
Ana’s performances this year are better than ever, and they were good enough before.
Under the coaching of Mike D’Ath she has equalled the record for the 100 metres, set new figures for the 200 metres and long jumped to a record which would have been good enough for fourth place at the Perth Commonwealth Games.
Mesulame Rakuro, from Nadi, won both the discus and the shot put for Fiji.
He is an old campaigner who knows all the tricks of the game, and there is some talk that he used psychological tactics as well as skill to beat New Caledonia’s Bone in the discus.
Nor was Mesulame the only suc cessful veteran. The “grand old man” of Suva athletics, the Rev. Viliame Liga, won the javelin throw—as everybody had expected him to do.
Liga’s understudy, Tupua, took second place. He is a young athlete, who trains for the event by throwing a broom handle. He has already thrown the javelin over 200 ft.
Geraldine Bigourd went back to New Caledonia with a winner’s medal to place on each side of the gold medal she won at the South Pacific Games for the 800 metres. She won both the 400 metres and the 800 metres.
Serious Challenge
These were impressive per formances, but she will probably have to face a serious challenge from Fiji at the South Pacific Games.
Promising 16-year-old schoolgirl Sulueti was less than 10 yards back in the 400 metres and not much further behind over the longer dis tance.
Jules Gohe was never seriously challenged in the distance events. The
further the race, the further he was ahead. In both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres his winning times were faster than the South Pacific Games records, but were outside the Fiji records.
Over distances which might be qualified as semi-sprint” Osea Malamala was m a class of his own, but his performances over the 400 and 800 -P? e H es were not up to his best ’ possibly because the track was “dead” after heavy rain.
Rupem Ravonu, last season’s star sprinter m Fiji, became quite a hero when he overcame what seemed to be impossible odds on the first Saturday of the meeting to win the 4 x 100 metres relay by inches.
He repeated the performance at the first of the informal meetings to win the 1,500-metre relay, again by mere inches One of the veterans of the New
Caledonia team, Jean-Pierre Aifa dominated the 3,000 metres steeple chase and broke his own South Pacific Games record which was also a Fiji all-comers’ record Fiji appears to have a rising young star in this event in Epeli who was not far behind Aifa and who broke the Fiji national record lt is m ore than likely that these meetings will be a prelude to a regular interchange of visits between Fiji and New Caledonia Such events can do nothing but good for sport in the South Pacific, The spirit of goodwill that existed throughout the visit was quite remarkable. The athletes were bil leted in Suva homes and although the language barrier proved to be a stumbling block in the way of full fraternisation some lasting friend ships were founded.