games

Vanuatu’s games

By Shailendra Singh

VANUATU tak,es centre stage among island nations this month. The spotlight will be on the capital, Port Vila, venue of the fourth Mini South Pacific Games from December 6-16. For a short while the political bickerings, economic ills and environmental troubles of the

region will take backstage.

Sports will steal the headlines as the regions best athletes converge for two weeks of intense rivalry. The Mini Games is one of the biggest, if not the biggest event - sporting or otherwise hosted by Vanuatu. More than 800 athletes will compete in six different sports - namely athletics, soccer, box ing, lawn tennis, golf and netball.

They will be accompanied by about 168 coaches, officials and technical offi cers. Resources at Port Vila - population about 20,000 - have been stretched to the seams trying to accommodate the extravanagza. Added to that, there’s the red carpet treatment for 61 VIPs from the participating countries to think about.

Apart from sports ministers, many of the VIPs are expected to be high-ranking government officials.

Prime minister Maxime Carlot Korman’s government has pumped in millions of vatu on new construction projects and on renovations to upgrade Vanuatu’s outdated sports facilities to the required international standards. Hosting the games has been an expensive exercise for the government but there are the obvious benefits. The games is an excel lent public relations event which will give Vanuatu’s booming tourism industry more international exposure while Port Vila businessmen stand to make immedi ate gains from the Games economic spin off.

Games liasion officer Hendrick Ketner had acreditations of 80 journalsists which

he expected to increase to 100 through late applications. Vanuatu gets exposure in two prime tourism countries through Australian Channel Nine televison, Radio Australia, Radio New Zealand Interna tional and The Australian newspaper which will sent journalists to the games.

When the games are over, Vanuatu athletes will have a new 400 million vatu sports complex. The complex, with an international standard athletics track, a pavilion and a hall seating 2000 will be the boxing venue. Round-the-clock con struction was still in progress when this edition went to press.

Sports equipment donated by several

countries will further boost facilities for local athletes once the games are over.

France has given four million vatu worth of gear, the People’s Republic of China 2.28 m vatu and Germany 0.4 m vatu.

France has donated a further 20m vatu for the renovation of the games village and Australia 21.5 m vatu.

The sponsors are confident the extra milage their products receive will boost business during the games. Sixteen countries have confirmed participation.

The seven that have missed out mainly through of lack of finance are Kiribati, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Tokelau.

Regional sporting giants, Papua New

Guinea, Fiji, and the French Territories are sending the biggest contingents. PNG with a 121 squad is the largest followed by Fiji with 108. Vanautu, which used to send only a handful of athletes apart from its soccer team to past games has the third largest squad with 84. New Caledonia has 75 and Tahiti 71.

The fourth games is bigger than the last one held in Tonga in 1989 which had 600 athletes from 15 countries. Many athletes competing have been recalled from over seas where they are either based or

training. The Fijian boxing team, for

instance, has called in Drewitt brothers William and Robert who are former British Columbia Golden Gloves Cham pions. The Fiji-born brothers whose father is Samoan are Canadian residents.

Tonga’s superheavyweight boxer, Paea Wolfgramme is based in Auckland and welterweight Viliame Saunasi fights out of Hawaii. The athletics squads of several countries also have local-born but over seas trained athletes which will enhance competiton and add to the excitement. □