curate’s egg

L.A. Olympics a curate’s egg

Olympic fever has not exactly gripped the Pacific Islands in the wake of their perform ances in the Los Angeles Games and in at least two countries .. Fiji and PNG ... public questions have been asked about the value of the expenditure involved in sen ding teams to such events.

Nobody won any gold me dals, nor were expected to. lamo Launa, of PNG, threw the javelin 46.5 m to come second in that section of the heptathlon and record the best perform ance of any Pacific Islanders at Los Angeles. Swimmers War ren Sorby and Samu Tupou, of Fiji, broke national records, and the Suva yachties did well by their standards. Young Tony Philp, only 14 years old, was one of the youngest of all the competitors, and managed well on the unfamiliar, and less than popular, wind-glider. ’lt’s an irony of the Games,” said Fiji sailor, David Ashby, ’’that they chose the unpopular wind-glider, which is now out of production, because the Rus

sians were so insistent on it, and then the Russians didn’t come. ” ’’Young Tony did the best of all of us. Tony Philp, senior, and Bruce Hewitt, in the Torna do catamaran, finished second to last in a field of 14, re-sailing the battle of Anzac, as they put it, because the only team they beat was the Turks. I came third to last in the Finn class.”

Brian Wightman, manager of the Fiji team, defended the decision to send his country’s biggest ever team to the L.A. games on two grounds, the experience, and the exposure. ”We dressed our flag-carrier in traditional Fijian warrior cos tume and got 30 seconds of prime time television in front of two billion people. That alone was worth half a million dollars to our tourist industry.”

Ashby also thinks the exer cise will benefit Fiji directly as Australian and New Zealand yachtsmen are attracted to wards projected ocean sailing races in the archipelago. ”1 have donated my Finn yacht to the Sea Scouts in Fiji, and we

will find international money to push sailing training here, so it’s all good for the future,” he told

Pim.

"My problem was that I was not big enough or heavy enough. You need to be six feet and over 200 lb in a Finn. You are strapped in by your ankles and you lean over the side for two hours at a time. It’s known as the masochist s class, But if we could train a big Fijian boy to the standard required, we’d probably have something in the future,” Ashby said.

It was the first time since the Melbourne games of 1956 that Fiji had sent a yachting team to

an Olympic Games and ”it was very good for the sport. We have since had a lot of interest in holding three classes of oceanic races in Fiji waters, and it could turn into quite some thing for us”, ’’We’ve also discovered that there is all sorts of money available around the world for supporting and promoting Olympic competitors. I was sent to a training program in Ontario and I have brought back a great deal of knowledge. That’s going to be my best contribution ... towards the future,” Ashby said.