NEWLY appointed chef de mission of Team Fiji Wayne O’Connor highlights the vision of Team Fiji for the upcoming Mini Games in Port Villa, Vanuatu later this year.

During the first team officials meeting on December 3 last year, participants of Mini Games and Olympics came together to outline their vision, mission and goal for the upcoming competition in Vanuatu on December.

O’Connor highlighted that Team Fiji’s mission was to reclaim No.1 position as a sporting nation in the Pacific.

“They also want to be good ambassadors for Fiji and their goal is to win the most gold medals in the Pacific Mini Games,” he said.

According to O’Connor, their performance has been fluctuating through previous games and this meeting mission to move back to the top position.

CEO of FASANOC, Lorraine Mar said they came up with a plan to help improve the performance of Team Fiji in the upcoming event.

“Our performance hasn’t been going up, it’s actually been declining from previous games and last year and the year before last we realised that Fiji needs to do something about it and improve our performance at the games,” she said.

FASANOC outlines a plan called Resurgence Agenda which will involve programs such as Oceania sports education courses for national federations, coaches and sports administrators to help improve the performance of athletes during the games.

Sports such as archery, athletics, para athletics, beach volleyball, boxing, football, judo, men’s rugby sevens, table tennis, tennis and weight-lifting will be played at the 2017 Mini Games.

“It is unfortunate that at this point in time we have to announce that karate has been withdrawn from the Mini Games because they have a tight commitment with Oceania games this year,” he added.

The federations are expected to submit their calendar, preparation plans for the year and budget plans as stated in a meeting last Friday.

“So that was expected from the meeting last week and also we need the squad list from each federations that consists of all the athletes that they hope to take,” he added.

Each national federation has to submit its selection criteria, highlighting what the selection process is and how they are going to gauge their performances.

“It has to comply with what FASANOC requires and that is fair too to the athletes so that they can be vetted through the justification commission,” he said.

Once approved by Team Fiji, FASANOC will share it with the athlete so they know how selection is done.

“There are all these measures in place to make sure that the best athletes are selected of federations.”