Team PNG found gold medals hard to come by on day two of the Oceania Championships on Thursday as finals were held in only six open events contested by PNG athletes.
The highlight for PNG was in the last race of the night that Toea Wisil, as expected, blitzed the field in the women’s 100m to win by a margin of 0.6 of a second.
In the men’s race, Nazmie Lee Marai almost caused a major upset as he closed in fast on the hot favourite Jeremy Dodson of Samoa (formerly of the USA) with the finish line approaching.
His run however, was timed a fraction late as he missed out on a world championships qualifying win by 2/100th of a second.
The men’s 400m final saw Theo Piniau and Ephraim Lerkin settle for third and fourth as Australian Murray Goodwin and Fiji’s Samuela Railoa were too strong on the night.
Silver medals were also picked up by Shirley Vunatup in the 400m and by Sharon Toako with a personal best of 43.54 metres in the javelin.
Junior sprinters Leeroy Kamau, Nancy Malamut, Lyenne Nilmo and Letisha Pukaikia all impressed in the 100m qualifying rounds but found the competition tough in their finals with Australia and New Zealand dominating.
Oceania Athletics Area Championships 2017 is held at the ANZ Stadium, Suva, Fiji.
It started on June 28th and will end today (July 1).