On the right track...

Sport

By Brian Finn

FIJIAN athletes emerged as the kings and queens of sprint at last month’s second Oceania Athletics Championships held at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland, New Zea land. The Fijians took gold medals in three of the four 100 m events, three of the four 200 m sprints and gold in the senior women’s 4xloom

relay.

And the medal haul could have been grander but for a dropped baton in the senior men’s 4xloom race. Fiji’s dominant form in the dash which broke a near stranglehold by the home team helped the team to third overall in the medal tally, only one gold and two medals behind the Australians on second spot.

Team manager Paul Yee credits

the four-year development pro

gramme launched by Fiji’s athletic administrators in 1989 for the fruits

now being seen particularly

among the sprinters. One of those to emerge from that programme was Jone Delai who struck Oceania gold in both the 100 m and 200 m.

And another already promising

much on the way up is Rachel Rogers who collected three indi vidual golds in the junior women’s 100 m, 200 m and 100 m hurdles.

Yee also credits the assistance of

Oceania’s regional training director Fletcher McEwen and the experience gained by Fiji’s top sprinters competing and training on the Australian circuit each summer for the latest success.

And Fiji used that training pro gramme to good advantage bringing 15 athletes, including the sprint team, to Auckland three weeks ahead of the games to warm up on the local athletics circuit. For the future, Yee says, the current strength is with the sprinters, but he says the middle distance runners are also showing signs that they will be competitive when they add the road miles and experience of training and competing regularly.

Fiji’s next major indicator will be at next year’s Pacific Games in Tahiti. But the Fijians will get another crack at some of Oceania’s best athletes in July when many of those who took part in Auckland will be invited to take part in the international meeting in Suva.

Fiji’s gold medal winners were Jone Delai (snr men 100 m and 200 m); Vaciseva Tavaga (snr women 100 m and 200 m); Rachel Rogers (junior women 100 m, 200 m and 200 m and 100 m

hurdles); Senior Women’s 4xloom relay team; Senior Men’s 4x400m relay team.

Meanwhile, the Oceania chief of amateur athletics has praised the devel opment of athletics in the region. Peter Anderson says athletics is in good heart Anderson, president of the Oceania Amateur Athletics Association, says the regional body is “really starting to get somewhere now.” “Oceania is in good heart probably the best I’ve seen and

I’ve been involved since 1979”.

Anderson says there are opportunities now for Pa cific games and the Oceania athletics cham pionships, which were first held in Fiji in 1990. But he admits the association may have to look at future venues more carefully after the Mt Smart games were

followed by dismally small

audiences and with little media exposure in Auck land.

While local organisers blamed a lack of interest, Pacific island community leaders say the problem was really a lack of promotion for the event. And most leaders maintain the event would have been well supported had the local Polynesian communities known about it.

But despite the poor turn out, athletes from the 16 Oceania nations took advan tage of the good conditions and competition to reach new standards in their disci- R lines. While the 75-strong 'ew Zealand dominated with 85 medals including

49 gold, competition re

mained strong with the Aus tralian team taken from the Northern Territories region

edging out Fiji for second on the medal table by just two medals.

And while Fiji’s rich medal harvest was built around its dominant sprint team, the Tahitians who finished fourth on medals tapped a gold vein in the field events with titles in the senior men’s triple jump, Apolosi Foliaki; senior men’s discus, Gordon Banff senior men’s pole vault, Thibault Catiau and junior women’s shot put, Margaret Bringold. □

Brian Finn

Gold team: Fiji’s winning senior women’s 4xloom relay team.

Rachel Rogers (four golds) at left