FIJI’s Paralympics athletes demonstrated great courage and determination competing against the world’s record holders at the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Paralympics held last month from September 7 to September 18.
Team Fiji Paralympics chef de mission Mereoni Daveta made these comments in her reports of Team Fiji’s performance at the Games.
Daveta said despite their loss their athletes gained great exposure from their experience at the Games.
“Epeli Baleibau who qualified on merit for the Rio Paralympic Games participated in the Men’s T47 high jump event ranked 11th after the competition with a jump of 1.70m,” Daveta said.
She said Mere Roden, who qualified under the bipartite allocation, lost out during the preliminary rounds after losing to world number five Korea’s table tennis player Jung Young and then lost to world number four Sweden’s Lundbeack Ingela, who was a four-time Paralympian.
“Fiji was represented at the Rio Paralympic Games with a delegation of six which included two athletes Epeli Baleibau (athletics) and Mere Roden (table tennis).”
They were accompanied by their respective coaches Leone Qumi (high jump) and Harvi Yee ((table tennis), chef de mission Mereoni Daveta and president of the Fiji Paralympic committee Fred Fatiaki.
