doesn’t stop to count

This running man doesn’t stop to count

By Beryl Cook

DODGING crab holes on the track, Jerry Jeremiah is one of the athletes who offers Vanuatu its best chance yet to improve on its South Pacific Games medal tally.

According to team management, Vanu

atu’s contingent of 196 competitors in 11 sports could take out four gold medals, with Mary Kapalou in the women’s

400 m another certainty.

Vanuatu has been looking forward to contesting this year’s South Pacific Games after missing the 1987 Games in New Caledonia. Team manager Kanam Wilson said the Games Association’s move asking teams to sign indemnity forms and take out their own insurance had caused some concern.

“They asked us to take out our own insurance from before we leave until we get back. Normally the organising com mittee looks after everyone. Coming at the last minute this made us worried,” he said. “Everything"was confirmed and the games’ organising committee has been

touring the region saying everything was

okay, but we received a fax saying teams would be responsible for everything from

loss of property to their own safety and we were a bit worried. We sent a fax saying they would have to reconsider their decision.”

The chance to pit their talent in the regional arena is a big temptation for

Vanuatu, however, particularly with a few glimmers of gold in the line-up offering a chance to improve on their tally of only two gold medals in the 28-year history of the South Pacific Games. The athletics team offer hope for up to four gold medals. An almost certain win is expected in the women’s 400 m with Mary Kapalou. (Now living in PNG, she has been granted permission to compete for Vanuatu.) In PNG in July Kapalou broke her Vanuatu record for the 400 m with a time of 57.3. (She also has clocked 25.96 in the

Beryl Cook

Running for Gold: Vanuatu’s Frank Marieleo, Joseph Maucom, Batiste Firian in Vila

200 m and 61.2 in the 400 m hurdles.) After a training build-up of five to six months dodging crab holes on Port Vila’s grass track, the top-class synthetic track in PNG could also see 100 m hope Jerry Jeremiah slash his time. “He has been training hard for five and a half hours a day for five months and made some very’ big improvements, from 11.2 to 10.8 in just two months,” Wilson said.

Jeremiah has improved steadily over the years at each South Pacific Games.

His first big race was the games in Samoa in 1983 where he took a bronze in the 100 m, and a bronze in the 400 m. He won his first gold in 200 m and 400 m at the South Pacific championships in Fiji in 1984, and went on to win two for the 100 m and 200 m in the Tahiti champion

ships.

He took a silver in the 100 m, a bronze in the 200 m, and a gold in the 4x400 relay at the Mini Games in the Cook Islands in 1985. “We haven’t been able to get a lot of information about times in other countries, but South Pacific 400 m champion Takale Tuna from PNG (who has recorded 21.18 seconds in the 200 m) recorded 10.16 in a 100 m in Australia early this year,” Wilson said. “And a young chap from the Solomons, Joseph Onika, was in Canberra at the beginning of this year training and we heard that during one of his training sessions he did 10.6.”

Pleasant surprises are not impossible in sport, as Wilson will tell you. “In the Mini Games in Tonga in 1989 Vanuatu did not have any hope for a gold medal,” he recalls. “Takale Tuna from PNG didn’t attend because he was on a world tour, but Joseph Mankon was in the 400 m for us. He had trained with us for less than three weeks before the event.

We didn’t know very much about him, and in he went and broke the Vanuatu record at 48.91, (beating the favourite John Hou, of PNG.) “We were aiming for a bronze in the 400 m, and then we were going for silver when they were running in the 400 m relay but there was one mistake in the changeover and we got the bronze.”

Wilson and coaches Jean Tranut and Daniel Dam hope this year could be a golden one. “With the training now we are hoping for much more,” Wilson said.

But while trainers and team managers worry about team safety and organis ation, and tallying up the gold is an incredible thrill', Jeremiah’s thoughts as he prepares for a race suggest there’s more to the Games.

“When I’m in the starting blocks I always pray. I just ask God to help me and give me the power and strength to run my race. Then I’m off and the only thing in my head is Just run’. I don’t count, the gold medals, I just keep

running.” (j