Tokyo Olympics 2020

PNG’s sole representative in Athletics at the Tokyo Olympics, Rellie Kaputin flies off to Tokyo from Brisbane this afternoon.

The athletics competition gets under way on Friday and Kaputin will compete on Sunday in the qualifying round of the womens long jump.

Eleven of her USA-based team mates who are gathered together in Kansas for a few days during their summer break sent her their best wishes this morning.

The first day of racing at the Tokyo 2020 venue started yesterday and will run right through to Friday. 

Enoshima is a small island connected to the city of Fujisawa by a bridge. This was also the sailing venue for the Tokyo Olympics in the 1960’s. 

The sailors compete in two races each day for five days with each race taking up to 50 minutes to be completed.

Flag bearers Dika Toua and Morea Baru led the team into a stadium empty of spectators but full of athletes and the ceremony dancers.

The order of the walk out was unusual with countries marching in, according to the Japanese alphabet, which saw Papua New Guinea sandwiched between Bahamas and Bermuda.

Chef de Mission, Tamzin Wardley said the atmosphere was certainly unusual with no cheers as each country was announced but the show went on.

Toua is not new to making history at the Olympics as back at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games she became the very first female to participate in Olympic weightlifting for females.

Toua competed in the 49kg event, at the Tokyo International Forum this morning in the first day of competition at the Games.

Toua, at 37, was the oldest athlete in the field and had to change weight category due to the new Olympic weight categories, at these Games, having formerly lifted in the 53kg category.

Team PNG High Performance Coordinator, Chris Amini, said that four of the five sports that Team PNG is competing in, held their final technical meetings during the day to finalize competition times, entries and draws for the respective sports and events.

In weightlifting, Morea and Dika wasted no time in getting straight into training. Chris Amini said they trained well and the team looks forward to seeing them in their element.

The Numa pair will be making their Olympic debut and will be participating in the Laser Sailing class events at the Games. They will become the first PNG sailors to compete in the Laser events. 

Their competition commences on 25^th of July and they will compete in two heats a day through to the 30^th of July.  

Teariki Numa will be competing in the Men’s Laser event in a field of 35 boats and his sister Rose-Lee will be sailing the Laser Radial class, in a field of 44.