Olympian

Fiji's First

Dies At 38

A tribute by NORMAN BAXTER

Mesulame Rakuro, probably

Fiji’s most travelled international sportsman, and first Olympian, collapsed and died suddenly at his home at the Drasa Training Farm, near Lautoka on June 13.

He was 38.

He won the respect and admira tion of all he met in a top athletics career extending over 15 years.

Twice he represented Fiji in discus throwing events at the Olympic Games, in Melbourne, 1956, and Rome, 1960. He went to the Com monwealth Games at Vancouver in 1954 and Cardiff in 1958.

After the 1958 Games at Cardiff he was in the Commonwealth team which met Great Britain at White City, London, and hurled the discus 170 feet, to be placed second.

Record still stands

In 1957 he was one of Fiji’s re presentatives at the Malayan inde pendence games, setting a discus record which still stands.

Nearer home, he went to the South Pacific Games at Noumea in 1966, to win the gold medals in the discus and shot put events.

In between all that travelling he made several tours of New Zealand and one of Australia.

His own country saw him but once only in top competition—at the first South Pacific Games at Suva in 1963, when he won the discus and the shot put.

In spite of advancing years, for an athlete, he held his form and had been regarded as almost certain to once again represent Fiji at the South Pacific Games, in Port Moresby.

Mesulame, a teacher, was an es sentially modest man; praise heaped on him did not affect him. He wanted others to enjoy sport as he did, and organised athletics on a proper basis in several of the less sparsely popu lated areas of Viti Levu.

Mesulame leaves a widow and three children.