After 61 years of the Coca- Cola Games’ existence, the big question is whether Athletics Fiji does justice to the sport. The answer to this question will be a matter of perspective.
One is that in the long years of Fiji’s involvement in the sport, we still have no Olympic medals from track and field events. Fiji made its Olympic debut at the 1956 Summer Games and has competed at 14 Summer Games and three Winter Games.
Fiji is known all over the world for producing some of the toughest rugby players.
Given the way sport is built into the academic calendar and the fact that young Fijians love to be actively involved in sports, it can be safely assumed that a good number of players plying their trade overseas, or even in the Fijian and Fijiana Drua at some stage of their school life, took part in athletics.
Athletics pays in the modern era, at least for those in the topmost echelons of the sport, and admittedly, they have to be overseas. However, that should not stop us from thinking of setting young Fijians on the path to break into, and for some, to remain awhile at the very top of the sport.
So why hasn’t that happened after 61 years, six decades plus one year? Simply put, there needs to be an injection of fresh viewpoints, ideas etc, which after thorough screening, discussions have taken place, and resources allocated, after which Fijians can be expected to thrive competing at the highest level.
They say it takes a village to raise a child and Fiji has children, who need proper guidance. Only two athletes have taken part in the Olympic Games after reaching the required standards rather than through a wild card invitation.
They were Makelesi Bulikiobo and Leslie Copeland. Bulikiobo qualified for the women’s 400 metres sprint at the 2008 Games in Beijing and Copeland threw 80.45m and qualified for the men’s javelin event at the 2012 Games in London.
Talking about track and field and wanting to produce athletes who can compete with the very best, there is one name we cannot go past -—Usain Bolt. Through training and all the other add-ons, he was moulded to become one of the longest serving and fastest ambassadors of the sport.
Yet very few among us know that at the age of 14, Bolt participated in his first annual high school championships. That was in 2001 and he took the silver medal in the 200m with a time of 22.04 seconds.
He was coached by Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprinter, and Dwayne Jarrett. One year later, 2002, the 15-year-old’s rise to stardom had begun. He won gold in the 200m during the World Junior Championships which was held in the capital of Jamaica, Kingston.
One can just imagine a skinny Bolt at one of the world events at that young age. What happened after that leaves little to the imagination as it is well documented. Growing up in Jamaica, a country that is not rich, Bolt was trained to be a champion athlete, not just participating in competitions to break local records.
That, in some instances, seems to be the case here.
Raising a star
If the Jamaicans, can do it, just imagine what could be done in the case of Ratu Kadavulevu School’s athlete Jale Raikatalau? The 14-year-old, for the first time, last week became the youngest athlete, he’s in the sub-junior division, to claim the best male prize.
Raikatalau won gold medals in the 4x400m relay, 1500m, and 800m finals. He also set a new time of 4 minutes 43.11 seconds in the 1500m breaking the old record of 4 minutes 43.42 seconds that was set in 2017 by Yasawa High School’s Isireli Lagivala.
His record begs the question of what possible courses of (drastic, innovative) action can be taken to keep him in the sport? Not only him but also other track and field athletes who wish to and have the potential to excel.
By now national officials, to use a hunting analogy, should be like an eagle locked in on its prey, it never loses its focus. Raikatalau is the subject now, for the future. Imagine if what was done for Bolt was also afforded to Banuve Tabakaucoro, who was also known as the Pacific Sprint King.
Tabakaucoro, in his long involvement with the sport, ended his Tokyo 2020 campaign with a seventh-place finish in heat 4 of round 1 of the men’s 100m. He clocked a time of 10.70 seconds. The 31-yearold qualified for round one after he tied for third place in 14-year-old Jale Rakatalau of RKS wins gold the preliminary round with a time of 10.59 seconds.
The Bau Bullet had been with the sport for more than a decade dominating national and regional sprint events. Could he have progressed further than that seventhplace finish in Tokyo? If the answer is yes, then why did he not?
What and where are the learnings from that experience? Can they be used to prepare Raikatalau, and others like him — and this includes girls, so we can have a better chance for an Olympic medal from the tracks? Or from field events?
Apart from Tabakaucoro, we have had many track stars. Among them are names such as Jone Delai, Isireli Naikelekelevesi, Jone Biutilodoni all with colourful careers in Fiji but not at the highest level.
However, these names are from the past. In Raikatalau, and others like him – girls included, are our future.
What can be done now is to tap into that potential and make sure there is a proper, holistic program so that one day, on an Olympic podium, we could have a Fijian whose pathway was through the Fiji Finals, what some of us like to tag as the biggest and toughest secondary school athletics event in the Pacific.
Pathway
It’s high time that stakeholders took a deep look at the sport and set a pathway. Like in rugby, some will argue, there is no pathway from school rugby to get into the national 7s team. It’s a process of taking in players as and when they impress.
The process has, to an extent, hurt the sport. Can it be different for track and field athletes? It’s no use crying over spilled milk and saying that other sports are poaching your athletes.
As we all are aware, the more active and sports-inclined among our high school students will, if they can and this goes for boys and girls, take up rugby league or track and field in the first term.
In the second, it’s rugby union, soccer and hockey. Then there is — also in school — swimming, and there are other sports such as volleyball.
A pathway is vital to retain athletes and keep the sport rolling. There are means of using allies across the Pacific Ocean to hold an annual school event.
This will maintain the desire to stick around in the sport. Taking baby steps as such will discourage them from leaving the sport.
Players moving to other sports
After the Fiji Finals, the dust settled at the HFC Bank Stadium last Saturday. One wonders where those athletes, in terms of sporting futures, are heading or headed, especially the ones who have run in their final year.
For instance, Kesaia Boletaknakadavu, where is she headed, to rugby?
It seems to be one avenue through which young people can have a decent attempt at making a go of making a living through sports.
Among those who have transitioned from tracks to the rugby field are: former Adi Cakobau School student and sprinter, Laisani Moceisawana; Younese Bese, formerly of Gospel High School, and former Saint Joseph’s Secondary School student Heleina Young.
Moceisawana was part of the Fijiana 7s team for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
She is now part of the Rooster Chicken Fijiana Drua in the Super W and will face Young, who has been the revelation for the Queenslandbased Reds side.
Bese is also part of the national women’s 7s team.
Albert Tuisue is a professional rugby union player, who started with athletics as a representative of Kadavu Provincial Secondary School in the javelin and discus throw events.
He surely isn’t the only one.
It begs a deep question of what can, and must, be done to have a cadre of elite track and field athletes to put Fiji on the world map. In the process, they also secure a living.
Incentive
Bolt commanded appearance fees ranging from $250,000 to $500,000 to compete in track events.
That is a lot, but it’s a way of keeping the fastest man in the sport. Fiji might not have that much money to offer, but if that is the direction we must head in order to have international success and at the highest levels, then so be it.
As has already been mentioned, we need a fresh injection, of ideas and other stuff.
If not, we will see the same things happening over and over again. Our stars rise at the Fiji Finals and quickly fade away. Some as early as the very next week.
• Waisale Koroiwasa is a sports sub editor at The Fiji Times. The views expressed are his and not of this newspaper.
