THE Pacific king of the track, Banuve Tabakaucoro, has qualified to the Pacific Games 200m after he ran a time of 21.25 seconds in Friday’s athletics trials beating the qualifying time of 21.40 seconds.
Tabakaucoro acknowledged the support that helped him push his limits to qualify for the 200m event at the Pacific Games in Samoa in July.
“I am happy with what I’ve achieved and it wouldn’t be possible without the help of Aaron Powell who gave me a good competition to push me to the limits,” said Tabakaucoro.
“It’s not really fun to wake up in the morning and train but I’ve been training hard each day, and I’ve felt much better compared to the previous years during my rugby career but now I feel that I still have what it takes to redeem myself in the tracks locally and abroad.”
The Bauan bullet was caught in the middle of rugby, athletics and challenges in life a few years back but he is back and ready to burn any track he participates in.
“The challenges that I am facing is trying to stay healthy and staying focussed until the Pacific Games so I just need to be fit and prevent myself from visiting the physio,” Tabakaucoro said.
“So far, training has been really good, over the past few years I haven’t felt as good as this, especially being away from athletics and coming out of rugby was good for me so now I’m just refreshing mentally before the final two trials.”
The sprint king has the 100m as his next target to achieve and qualify since the qualifying time is 10.50 seconds and he is 10 microseconds behind with a time of 10.60 seconds.
“Now I’m focussing on the 100m and I am confident that I can qualify and all it needs is dedication and hard work in training,” said Tabakaucoro.
Meanwhile, Athletics Fiji will have two more trials before they select their final athletes to the games in Samoa.
The trials will be held in February and April at the ANZ Stadium in Suva.
