SHE is one of the only two athletes to have represented Fiji at the Olympic Games on merit.
The two-time Olympian who has now turned to coaching will be studying in the US with the hopes to return home and improve not only Athletics Fiji’s performance, but also allow national federations to learn and improve.
Like many who started their sporting career from a very young age to finally achieve something, Makelesi Bulikiobo-Batimala had some stoppages on the way when she started.
She cannot recall whether someone from her dad’s side ran as an athlete.
“My dad’s elder brother Samuela Vocea was a boxer. From my mum’s side, through conversation with my grandfather, he used to run. I think maybe that’s where I inherited running,” Batimala said.
Educated at Namaka Public School from Year 1 to 3, she later moved to Suva and continued her education at Dilkusha Girls School where she started competing when she was nine years-old and at Year 4.
It was her first time to compete, but the result then didn’t show that Dilkusha was nurturing someone who would later hoist the Fiji flag to greater heights in athletics.
“When I was in Year 4 I qualified for the Nausori Zone competition. I was at Dilkusha Girls Primary School and I participated in the long jump, 50metres and 4x100m.
“I ran in the Twisties Games, and ran 50m and was a starter in the relay for the U10. I came first from the zone and when I reached the Twisties Games, I did not make the finals.”
The following year her school stopped participating in athletics, and that prevented Batimala from competing at primary school level.
It was only when she joined Lelean Memorial School that she started running again, creating waves, winning medals and setting records with the last of her Coca-Cola Games records being slashed last year by Gospel High School’s Younis Bese.
However, her 100m record which made her known as the Pacific’s Sprint Queen still stands today in the Pacific Games.
In the 100m, she has a record of 11.55seconds set at the 2007 Pacific Games in Samoa. In the 200m, her name is also engraved for a record time of 23.40s and her 400m record was set at home in the 2003 South Pacific Games where she ran 52.66s.
She continued running until the Beijing Olympics where she qualified for the semi-finals, but technicality allowed a runner slower than her to make the semi-finals.
To Makelesi as she is affectionately known, that was a major achievement, knowing that technicality ruled in favour of another runner to make the semi-finals because the runner came third in her slow heats compared with Makelesi, who ran in a much tougher pool of athletes. Her time were better than the other sprinters who were given the chance to run the semi-finals instead of her.
In all her preparation, there was something she never allowed to go amiss —— her spiritual preparation.
“My spiritual upbringing was a pillar of strength and guidance throughout my athletic career and life.
“I will always be grateful to my parents for teaching me values and spiritual principles that have made my life a stable one and what it is today,” she adds.
Originally from Nadamole Village, Wailevu East in Cakaudrove, Makelesi is the second eldest in her family where her elder brother was more of a field event athlete and participated in discus throw, her younger sister, Siteri Bulikiobo who now plays rugby was a shot put rep at Suva Grammar School. Her two younger brothers competed in athletics, but one in the British Army was more into rugby than running on the tracks like Vili, she said.
She revealed how she made it on merit to the 2008 Olympic Games.
“For me it wasn’t only physical training. It was the sports science and medical side of things. What kept me going was my spiritual preparation because there came a time when having a family and all, you just need to have that extra power and strength to see that you see things through and that was one important pillar of my prep and competing in my career.
“There came a time, I had to be fast because I just needed that extra strength, even the wisdom to create your own race plan to be able to change your race plan even when I was about to run. That comes with prayer and fasting.
“It was something I didn’t want to miss. I pray three times a day, sometimes I fast when I’m training though it’s not right, but I feel a different power within me.”
Fasting during training is something she never told her coach Lloyd Way and she tried to do it choosing a rest day just so to keep her fasting going.”
Now that she has hung her track shoes and has started to share her knowledge of both being an athlete and coaching, the mother of three boys works around her family schedules.
To Makelesi, her family is her priority. The health and upbringing of her sons comes first and every other decisions made is to be made according to what she has set for her family where she has a son in Year 6 and the three-year-old twin brothers.
From when she was an athlete to now being a coach on the tracks, when it comes to family, she puts on her mother’s hat to see that her family receives the best motherly and wifely care she could provide.
“For me, as a parent it’s just I put on my mother and wife’s hat and even though I bring in some values and discipline that I have learned from sport and to my children. I’m just a normal mother and wife at home, carrying out normal responsibilities.
“I do things around my family schedules. There is work, but my family is centred in my work; It’s a bit different now from when I was single, when I got married and was still running. I made sure everything was done and well taken care of, yes, I wake up early, for me a lot of sacrifice, I was wanting to achieve this and I also had a family to look after, sometimes I do training when my young ones are still sleeping or when I’m finished with what they are doing then I train, when I go overseas I try to ensure that they are still brought up in an environment where there are values, and my parents were very supportive in that.
“So that is what they continue doing, going to church and also I have my helper who is my aunt who’s always there to ensure that they have a good lunch, uniforms are clean, I am fortunate to have a very strong support structure.”
She said now as she looked forward to start her modules at the University of Delaware she’s excited about the opportunity to finally be able to give back to the sport of athletics what she had managed to achieve in the past years.
“I hope this plan will not only help Athletics Fiji, but can be used by other national federations to help them establish their high performance structure, really for me it’s looking at not only my sport but other sports, to not only groom but to reach the Olympics because it’s a pinnacle for every sport especially Olympic sports, once you’re there you know you’re done.”
Today she gives credit to the Almighty for her achievements and to the support base she had at home that has allowed her to be one of Fiji’s favourite athletes in her time.
