Team Fiji officials have pegged a budget of $1 million to participate at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, from July 28 to August 8.
The figure was revealed by Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee (FASANOC) chief executive officer Lorraine Mar yesterday.
“This budget will be close to $1 million,” Mar said.
“This is to take into account not only the travel but also our 10 days outside of the Games village which is substantial.
“We have received a government grant of $500,000 for preparation and participation. Our request was $400,000 for participation only. We have split half for participation and the other for preparation. We have added our own resources to the preparation fund and allocated to national federations.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting global sports, the welfare of athletes and officials top the preventative list.
Mar said Team Fiji plans included isolation and acclimatising in Birmingham before the Games started.
“The plan was for pretraining for Birmingham to go ahead with the whole team to acclimatise and to be in isolation before we move into the Games village.”
Fiji plans to send about 70 athletes to Birmingham.
“The sports vying for the Games are athletics, boxing, judo, swimming, rugby, table tennis, bowling, and triathlon for the first time. In athletics and table tennis, there are para-athletes. The Birmingham Organising Committee is doing everything to get para-athletes to the Games. This is one games where we inter-grate able-bodied athletes with athletes with disabilities.
“For para-athletes, they need to be classified, while able-bodied athletes have to qualify. We are trying to get them into tournaments to be classified and then qualify.
“There are a lot of challenges for all sports in terms of travelling to any competition. We were going to the Commonwealth Games Federation to fund a program where we would have been able to send our athletes to what is called the Gaps program. It is where they can attend training camps in Australia and the first camp was at the end of February but has been postponed because of travel and getting into Australia.”
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, Team Fiji’s 97 athletes who competed in 12 sports won a gold medal, a silver and two bronze medals.
