Scoreboard At A Glance
p. 20 · Read in the full issue
Thirteen territories took part in the Fifth South Pacific Games, one less territory than at the Fourth Games in Tahiti in 1971. GEIC and the Cook Islands didn't appear this time but Micronesia were newcomers.
Two teams, GEIC and Nauru, failed to lift any medals in 1971, but no team went home from Guam without at least one medal. Almost at the last minute Nauru, which fielded its largest team ever, won a bronze, an event hailed with delight by everyone. The bronze was won by the women's softball team, the members of which were cheered as if they had taken a bunch of gold medals.
The medal count is given below. It is not an official listing (official communications dried up before the athletics ended in heavy rain on the Saturday night). The points score in the fourth column has been compiled by PIM on the basis of allocating three points for a gold, two for a silver and one for a bronze.
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Points
New Caledonia 37 31 34 207
French Polynesia
27 28 39 176 Papua New Guinea 22 25 18 134
Fiji
13 13 11 76 Western Samoa 9 4 5 40 Guam 3 5 5 24 American Samoa 3 4 5 22 Wallis & Futuna 1 2 8 15 New Hebrides 1 3 4 13 Solomon Islands 1 2 3 10
Tonga
2 1 1 9 Micronesia 0 2 0 4 Nauru 0 0 1 1