Rushing for the games

Sport

By Carrie Loranger

AS Tonga prepares to host the Mini South Pacific Games, one question keeps cropping up in the media, on sports fields, around the kava bowl: will the facilities be ready in time?

The question is one that makes Montgomery Ahi nervous. As project manager of the company overseeing the construction of the track and field stadium, he knows he is cutting it fine with his

deadline. The stadium at Teufaiva Park Ahi’s company is involved in is to be completed and handed over to the Ton gan government on August 19. By the last week of July the facilities did not look like they were going to be ready for the kingdom’s biggest show. “It’s a tight schedule, but by hook or by crook it’s got to be finished,” said Ahi.

The sight at the stadium in late July

was one of Tongan, German and Tahi tian workers transporting asphalt for the track, painting the grandstand, and laying tiles in the VIP lounge and chang ing rooms under the grandstand in order to finish the stadium on time. The hustle and bustle is not predicted to end until August 22, when the games start.

Three supervisors from Balsam Com pany in Germany arrived in the second week of July to help Tongan crews lay the track Three men from MCM com pany in Tahiti arrived a week early to oversee the tile work and painting in the lower rooms. The same rush was hap pening at the indoor gymnasium at ’Atele, where Ekho Lim, owner of Oceanic Industrial Enterprises, con tracted to build the facility, was pushing his 140 workers to work day and night.

Even with crews now working from 7.30 in the morning until 10 at night at Teufaiva, Ahi admits that finishing on time for the presentation ceremony and the mini games will be close. Several op tions were being considered to get the work at Teufaiva done on time. The contractors have applied to the Govern ment for permission to work on Sun days. “It depends on if the Tongan workers will do it or not,” Ahi said. With only three Sundays left, it may not make that much of a difference, he added.

Lim’s crew was already working on Sun days at ’Atele. Another option was to extend the working hours at Teufaiva and have crews work all night. The third possibility was to bring in workers from overseas to boost the workforce.

Construction began at Teufaiva in February this year, but Ahi said that was already too late. “Tongans are not like any other people I’ve worked with,” he said. “I would have liked to have started sooner.” Construction at ’Atele began last November but record rainfall early in the year delayed the work. All the furniture and fittings for the Teufaiva stadium are in the country. There was some worry that grass would not be strong enough. Ahi said some work could be done after the games.

Meanwhile Tongan athletes were pre paring for a medal haul. Out of Tonga’s ten gold medal prospects in the 1989 South Pacific Mini Games, only four of the athletes were trained in Tonga. The United States Information Agency sent two coaches to Tonga in July to prepare the athletes, boxers and weighllifters.

“The Tongans have a lot of potential, it just needs to be developed,” said coach Tom Virgets. But he warned that coun tries like New Caledonia and Tahiti have been training for the past two years, and will be tough. “The difference you’ll see has nothing to do with the abilities of the athletes, it’s the training,” Virgets said.

“If they will follow on (with training) they will be very successful in the next one to three years.” n