Olympic team

Nauru joins Olympic team

By David North

NAURU has been accepted into the next round of Olympic Games. The Switzerland-based International Olym- Ric Committee (IOC) decided that lauru could join a list of 192 nations and near-nations in the next Summer Olym pics, in Atlanta, USA, in 1996. Nauru President Bernard Dowiyogo had flown to Western Samoa earlier this year to press his island’s case when lOC Presi dent Juan Samaranch was touring the South Pacific.

The other Pacific island jurisdictions already on the list include: American Samoas, the Cooks, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa. Not participating, at least so far, are the nations of Kiribati and Tuvalu, the French islands in the Pacific and the various US and ex-US territories in Micronesia.

Nauru’s hope is that it can do what no other Pacific island has done win a medal in a Summer Olympic compe tition. Those hopes are pinned on the sturdy physique of Marcus Stephen, who has already won weight-lifting gold medals in a series of non-Olympic competitions, such as the 1990 Common wealth Games, the 1991 South Pacific Games, and more recently the 1994 Micronesian Games.

Stephen, incidentally, is the only Nauruan with Olympic experience, hav ing joined the 1992 Games as a member of the Western Samoa team. In the year 2000 the Games will come a little closer to the islands, being played that year in Sydney. □