THE number of athletes that will represent Fiji to the Olympic Games in Japan will be lesser than the ones that represented Team Fiji in 2016.
The chief executive officer of Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympics Committee Lorraine Mar said the only difference from the 2016 team to this year’s athletes would be the football team.
“The team from 2016 has reduced significantly because of the absence of the football team,” she said.
The Fiji football team qualified in 2016 because New Zealand football team was disqualified for fielding a player that’s ineligible to play however the Fijian team failed to qualify this year.
Meanwhile, Fiji has included a new sport and the qualification round is around the corner for the athlete to qualify.
“For the first time Team Fiji has someone from Karate who has the potential to qualify because the other sports were there in 2016.
“Another difference was that many athletes in 2016 qualified through the Tripartite Commission invitational system.”
The purpose of the Tripartite Invitational System is that the International Olympic Committee has 206 members and the IOC wants all the members to be at the Olympic Games.
