Water, Water Everywhere,

How They Fared In Suva, 1963

Water, Water Everywhere, But Few Good Swimmers

One of the strangest paradoxes of the Games was that, although the 13 competing Territories are planted in the greatest ocean in the world, they produce very few good swimmers.

ONLY four of the 13 territories— Fiji, Papua-New Guinea, New Caledonia and American Samoa— were represented by swimming teams; and at one stage before the Games began, the organisers seriously con sidered cancelling the swimming events because of lack of support.

As it was, some of the few nomina tions had to be withdrawn when the draws were announced because the swimmers were entered in events which clashed or nearly clashed.

The swimming card was therefore filled out with local events and exhibitions to give the paying cus tomers something to watch, and to give a breather to competitors taking part in several events a night.

Standards generally, were not high —probably because some territories obligingly entered anybody likely to swim the course.

There were some strange con sequences. In a heat of the 30-lap mile event, for example, an American Samoan was pulled from the water exhausted after only eight laps!

On the other hand, 17-year-old Fijian school girl Winikiti Adi, who learned to swim in a river near her village and has no style, won a gold medal for Fiji in the 110 yd. women’s backstroke event with a time of 1

min. 27.6 sec. She “amazed” Fiji officials, who had expected the event to go to Mrs. Joan Blyth (also of Fiji). Winikiti followed this gold medal with two others.

The Games’ youngest competitor, 13-year-old Joan Herrington, also won three gold medals for Fiji, and a bronze.

One Games official said: “You’d hardly believe that an area that in vented the style (the crawl stroke) that is now the basis of world swimming could have slipped so far behind in the sport”.

Why, then, are there so few good swimmers in the Islands?

"Happy Splash"

According to Games organisers, it is because: • Competitive swimming is foreign to the Islanders, who swim at home only for fun or for survival. • Few islands have swimming pools, and where they do, they are often used only by Europeans. • Women in the Islands have had less experience than men because, for generations, many have been coy swimmers, unwilling to uncover themselves in the company of men.

In short, South Sea Islands swim ming has been traditionally “just one big happy splash”. So unless more organised swimming is introduced in the Islands, future Games will be dominated by European swimmers, as this one was.

The value of swimming pools, in cidentally, was proved by the wins of two New Guinea natives, T. Jo vel and K. Jarope, who took out first and second place in the men’s 110 yds. butterfly. Both are privates with the Pacific Islands Regiment and neither had done any real swim ming until a few months ago when a new pool was opened at the PIR barracks at Taurama, Port Moresby.

They have been using it regularly since.

New Caledonian swimmers would have done better if they had pools.

Teamwork Secret

Of Games Tennis

A strong team combination won the tennis gold medal for Fiji, al though some other territories, not ably the French teams, played more brilliantly .

R. CAISSON, 20, of French Poly nesia, although put out in the first match, was a remarkably fine player. Palelei, of Tonga, was amazingly fast on the court.

Mrs. Nono Tani, of the Cooks, always looked good, but the Cook Islanders were not sophisticated players because of lack of competi tion. Some had never played with officials or umpires before and there was much foot faulting.

Women, particularly, suffered from the lack of competition in many islands.

The series proved that the standard of tennis is higher in territories with the biggest transient European populations.

Papua-New Guinea would have made a better showing if its team members had had more experience together. This was the strength of the Fijian players.

A notable feature of the tennis was that many players were well above the usual age in championships of this kind (one was 52), so terri tories which sent young players will reap the benefit at the Noumea Games in 1966. Only Niue and the BSIP did not send tennis teams.

Winikiti Adi, who won three gold medals in swimming. Photo: Gordon Clear.

The record gold medal winner in Suva was Carl Bay, 18, of Fiji, who won five —all for swimming.