LAST year Ratu Sukuna Memorial School came fifth in the girls’ division at the Coca-Cola Games, this year they have moved up to fourth place with Natabua High School.
A big accomplishment for a small contingent at the Fiji Finals.
The school’s field coach, Faizan Ali said it was a remarkable achievement for all of them.
“It’s an exciting moment not only for the students but also for the old scholars, teachers and whoever is associated with the school,” he said.
“For the girls we did off-season training from Term 3 of last year so the girls coming into the Coke Games were well prepared.
“We didn’t get some of the results that we wanted this year but hopefully next year we will come back stronger.”
He said this year their team focused more on the field events, especially with the throwers.
“Hopefully next year we can get some jump coaches in and get medals from the jumping events too,” he said.
“We won the fifth position last year and this year we have moved up to the fourth position, hopefully God willing we make the top three next year.”
Going into the competition, the team knew that they would scoop two gold medals in the sub-junior javelin 500g event and the sub-junior 1kg discus throw by Salanieta Vereivalu.
“She (Vereivalu) had performed really well during the zone and coming into the Coke Games we had a lot of expectations from her to deliver and she did,” he said.
Vereivalu threw a distance of 27.97m in the sub-junior discus 1kg throw and a distance of 37.10m in the javelin 500g throw to win two golds.
He said in terms of development, they are on the right track.
“We are working closely with our sub-junior and juniors because they are the ones that progress up to intermediate and senior levels,” he said.
“Most of our athletes wanted to participate in the track events but they had good potential to be field athletes.
“If we see that they have natural talents in field, we try to convince them to try it out and they do extremely well in it.”
He said he is super proud of all the athletes in the team.
“As a coach I’m really proud of all the athletes’ performance at the Coca-Cola Games and I hope they continue to stay in Ratu Sukuna.”
He said like many other schools, they look for support in any way they can to help develop their team further.
The team managed three gold medals, one silver and two bronze medals at the athletics meet.
Two golds were won by Salanieta Vereivalu, one silver from Loata Lewageena (who also broke a record) and two bronze medals won by Adi Salote Serukalou and Loata Lewageena .
