Vibose, 40, returns to Moresby

Moresby for one last fling

By Martin Tiffany

WITH the javelin in one hand and her yellow pair of track shoes in the other, Mereoni Vibose said: “It’s time for me to hang-up my javelin shoes. These will be my last games.” She grinned.

The grin belies the sadness Vibose, 40, feels at retiring from competition afier being a dominant force in the javelin in the South Pacific for the past 22 years.

The sadness is not so much her saying

goodbye to competitive javelin but the

fact that there will be no-one in Fiji to take over from where she leaves off.

“ Age is catching and I am certainly going to miss competing, but I am sadder that there will to no one in Fiji to replace me,” Vibose said. No Fiji female thrower is getting close to Vibose’s national javelin record of 53.18 set in 1987.

It is fitting that Vibose is to end her career in Port Moresby, as it was there that the javelin and discus specialist began her rise to prominence at the Third South Pacific Games in 1969. She was 18 years old at the time and she captured the hearts of many with silver medals in the javelin (41.70 metres) and discus (38.82 metres).

Fiji dropped her from the 1971 games because she had missed training. Her reeason? She had gone to her village to

find pocketmoney tor the expected games trip. She has never missed a South Pacific Games since, winning a medal at every one.

At the 1975 Guam Games she won the javelin gold and the bronze in the discus; in the 1979 Suva games she won the gold in javelin; at the 1983 Apia games she won the silver in discus and javelin and at the 1987 Noumea games she won the gold in javelin.

Last year at the Oceania champion ships in Suva she retained her form with the gold in javelin. Despite being one of the oldest athletes in Port Moresby this month she is the top contender for the

javelin gold.

Her main competition, she says, should come from Papua New Guinea’s lamo Launa who at the Oceania Cham pionships last year threw just 68 centi metres short of Vibose. At the recent PNG athletic championships in Port Moresby, Launa bettered her old mark of 50.11 metres to 50.40 metres.

Other strong rivals will be the Wallis and Futuna duo Monica Fifialotu and Marie Danielle Teauyouen who are throwing 53 and 51 metres respectively.

Vibose will compete in the discus but she doesn’t envisage a medal in the event.

“The javelin has always been my event, although I have competed in the discus and the shotput,” she said. Her personal best in the discus is 47.64 metres, the Fiji national record set in 1984.

Vibose’s love with the javelin began when she was 17 years old and just straight out of school. Said she: “At school I watched some of the senior girls who were competing in the first South Pacific Games training for the javelin and discus. I was interested but I never competed while I was in school.”

Her first competition began in Siga

toka, in western Fiji, where a new athletic club was formed. She went along and tried the javelin and discus and a

Vibose the golfer: end of javelin

year later she was representing the countr)' in the two events. Ever since has, like wine, been getting better with age. How? “I read booklets about throwing and watch video tapes and practice a lot. The javelin is a complicated event because you have to combine running and throwing and at the same time maintain your balance.” 7 Vibose has competed in two Commonmonwealth Games; at Christchurch in 1974 when she was placed seventh and at the Brisbane Games in 1982 when she was placed ninth. She

competed in the World Championships in Helsinki in 1983 and in Rome in 1987. She was unplaced, Vibose is also a keen golfer, having taken up the sport a few years ago, and ma y dedicate more time to reducing her handicap. Javelin? “I think it is time I should rest.”

A . r-.. , , , Another veteran Fiji athlete who is almost definite to call it quits after the PNG Games is the 37-year-old, 400 metres specialist Joe Rodan. Rodan’s first games was in Guam in 1975. He’s never missed any since then. □