FIJI and her regional neighbours have been assured of more Australian help in sports.
This is good news because of the resources and financial support to develop, enhance and expose regional sporting talents. The Australian government’s Sports Diplomacy 2030 and Australia’s Pacific Step-up initiatives are now set to be expanded, following a recommendation made by the Australian Federal Parliament last week.
Chair of the Australian Parliament’s Trade Sub-Committee, Ted O’Brien, presented a Parliamentary Inquiry report titled “One Region, One Family, One Future”. The expansion of sporting initiatives program which is run by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) via PacificAus Sports, would see the creation of Team AusPac.
This would seek to maximise opportunities for Pacific island countries to be closely associated with, and actively participate in, the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Australia.
A special Pacific islands program could be established as part of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in support of elite athletes from the Pacific and supporting efforts from a Pacific island country enter the National Rugby League (NRL) club competition.
The number of sports would additionally expand beyond netball, rugby union, football and rugby league in the PacificAus Sports program. The support was hailed a success in the Tokyo Olympics where 82 athletes from the region attended the games.
They were from the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Fiji.
Fiji led the success with the men’s rugby team retaining the gold medal while the Fijiana 7s team scooped bronze medal. Five national records were broken at the games by athletes, along with 16 personal bests and 36 season’s bests.
Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) president Robin Mitchell said the assistance was timely because of the COVID-19 pandemic impact.
