Year after year, the number of schools participating in the Fiji Secondary Schools Athletics Finals keeps on increasing. Preparation works done by students, schools, parents and former scholars is tremendous. Money generated or spent in the games is also huge, whether you are a food or drinks seller, gate-takings receiver, team sponsor or just a supporter.
After a Fiji Finals is run, we wait for another year to run. In this one-year wait, participating teams learn from their mistakes, organisers analyse how the games can be improved and supporters celebrate their teams’ achievements or curse their missed opportunities.
I believe a technical problem that existed a few decades ago and has survived over time and even outliving many athletes is the failures of the “starting gun” and the “timing mechanism”.
Imagine if Nadroga and Naitasiri were about to play in a Farebrother challenge and the game has to be delayed for a couple of hours because the referee has no whistle or the first half was played for 55 minutes because the timer’s clock had malfunctioned.
This year, the impact caused by this age old problem delayed the Fiji Finals for a few hours while students waited patiently in the hot sun or in the rain. This unnecessary wait has various impacts on participating athletes affecting their performances. These are valuable performances that took many sacrifices to make.
I believe organisers had one whole year to fix this but always return the following year with the same old problem neatly dressed with a new twist of excuses and explanations. Many athletes have left school, grown old and some have even passed away, yet this problem still lives.
Can we please choke its neck, stomp it, cut off its head or do whatever it takes to kill it once and for all?
