2019 Pacific Games

The crowd exploded in cheers as Samoa's medal-winning Lauren Sale readied herself on the block for the women’s 200m individual medley, the first race of the evening.

Matelita Buadromo of Fiji had a strong showing during the preliminary rounds and New Caledonia’s May Toven looked to podium as well. The buzzer sounded and the women were off.

In Tuesday’s pool matches at Apia Waterfront, Tuvalu’s Saaga Malosa and Amalamo Talake defeated PNG’s Richard Batari and Loi Walo in straight sets, although the PNG pair are not the same players that won gold at the Port Moresby XV 2015 Pacific Games.

Along with the rest of Team Tuvalu, Malosa and Talake endured a three-day voyage to reach Samoa. They only arrived on Saturday before attending Sunday night’s opening ceremony and going straight into action on Monday.

The weather dampened the impressive start when Vanuatu men’s cricket team bowled the less experienced New Caledonia team out for 23 runs.

Vanuatu quickly passed this total to finish the match, following a rain delay.

Papua New Guinea then commenced their innings chasing Samoa’s 84 runs.

They struggled to complete the first round match due to persistent showers which meant the overs were reduced to 15.

On the new courts at Apia Waterfront, PNG won the first set 21-17 and the second 21-7, playing with a new line-up of Richard Batari and Loi Walo, in place of Port Moresby 2015 Pacific Games gold medalists Richard Kilarupa and Mea Moha.

Day one of competition saw six games played in the men’s competition in front of a capacity crowd at the free event.

Cheered on by packed crowds, Samoa won the first set 25-23, Tahiti took the second 21-12, and Samoan claimed the last set 15-11.

The track and field competition in Apia begins on Monday, July 15, and the PNG team has been camped in Cairns since June 29 after attending the Oceania Championships in Townsville.

Team manageress, Nola Peni, said: “Food and words of encouragement has not been in short supply to fuel the athletes’ intensive training program with three different wantok groups visiting the athletes at the Bohemia Resort last week with a variety of dishes.

The Opening Ceremony at Apia Park Stadium in Samoa's capital city was broadcast internationally, and was the first Pacific Games opening event to take place on a Sunday.

Despite heavy rain earlier in the day, the weather remained dry for the evening, and the three-act ceremony attracted large crowds, some of whom arrived two hours before the event.

Excited athletes from the 24 competing countries opened proceedings with the parade of nations, some performing a short traditional dance, wearing traditional dress as they moved through the packed arena.

Faatamalii Jenny Lauano, assistant CEO of Samoa’s Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, welcomed all participating athletes, officials and schools who were part of the event.

“Each of the schools participating in today’s ceremony have adopted a country to represent during our flag raising ceremony,” she told the team delegations. “They have learnt your respective culture, your languages and your traditional dances as tribute to all our wonderful countries participating in the Games.”

The ‘two million tree-planting program’ is part of the Samoa Pacific Games theme of ‘Greening the Games’, and Team PNG was the first country to respond to the call for the initiative on July 6^th.

Team PNG athletes were led by Team PNG athlete reps, Lua Rikis and Milton Kisapai, who are also SDG champions for Papua New Guinea.

It is the aim of the 2019 Samoa Pacific Games to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by planting 200 trees for each country that participates at this Games.

For those involved in one of the momentous occasions in the history of what is considered the ‘Miracle Games’ this is described as an “unexpected blessing.”

With such a short time for Samoa to organise the Games, the people have taken the challenge on board and are working hard to ensure the opening ceremony is a success.

Students from different schools and districts around Samoa are working and blending together with one another – and portraying the slogan of the Samoa 2019 Pacific Games, ‘one in spirit.’

“To be honest, I am very happy and honoured to captain the national team once again and I’m looking forward to leading the boys to the Pacific Games,” said Foster.

“It will be a challenging task for me to lead this bunch of boys, especially without regular captain David Muta and David Browne who were ruled out due to injury.

“However, I have been given a lot of support from my other senior teammates, including Koriak Upaiga, Raymond Gunemba, Daniel Joe, Nigel Dabinyaba and Alwin Komolong which takes a load off from my shoulders and I am playing the role well.