Sports

Oceania champs on the board

PACIFIC Islands countries will be invited with Australia and New Zealand to tender for the staging of the second Oceania athletics championships in 1992.

The decision to proceed with planning for the second championships was made by the council of the Oceania Amateur Athletics Association at a meeting in Auckland last month.

The inaugural championships were staged for the first time in Fiji in July and were judged “an outstanding success,”

Association President Clive Lee said.

Competing were more than 220 athletes from 12 nations and territories including Australia with a team drawn from the Northern Territory and North Queens land and New Zealand, which sent a

“development squad.”

Lee said the date for the second championships in 1992 would depend on the successful tenderer. It could be before or after the Olympic Games at Barcel ona, scheduled for late July into early August. The host country would be

required to provide good-quality facili

ties and other infrastructure for the championships, plus accommodation

and meals for all competitors and officials. It would have to seek commer cial sponsorship to help defray the costs the Fiji championships at the national stadium in Suva were sponsored by the Mobil oil company and were helped by funds from the Fiji government.

Lee said the qualification criteria for Australia and New Zealand was dis cussed in a general way at the council meeting, but any possible change would be up to the athletics authorities of the two countries themselves. The criteria were designed to provide a more even competition between the two larger nations and the inexperienced islanders.

But New Zealand’s strong young team won an overwhelming majority of the gold medals in Fiji, with Australia’s Northerners second in the table.

Members of the Oceania association are American Samoa, Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Guam, Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa.

The South Pacific Games is in Papua New Guinea next year and the Mini- Games in Vanuatu in 1993. □

Talat Mehmood

Successful: Braeman Yee and Alex Soqosoqo celebrate Fiji’s victory in the 4 x 4 metres relay in Suva