Pac Sports
Sports
Fiji Frustrated
Fiji's Josaia Bukalidi and New Zealand's Jeff Campbell meet in the New Zealand Fiji "Football for Life" competition last year.
Soccer Qualifier Preparations Hurt
Fiji’s preparations for the Olympic and 2010 Soccer World Cup qualifying tournaments have been hit by indiscipline in its own squad, and continuing coup-related travel bans. Eight members of the country’s Olympic soccer team have been fined and banned from representing the country for five years after leaving a training camp to go on a drinking spree.
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New Zealand will meet Fiji in the opening round of the Olympic qualifying tournament though March 1. The winner of the six team competition will earn a spot at the Olympic Football Tournament in Beijing in August.
Each team will play five games and the winner will be decided on points. Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu will also contest the spot.
Meanwhile the postponed FIFA 2010 World Cup qualifying match between New Zealand and Fiji has been moved to a neutral venue in Apia, Samoa on June 23. The match will be played at the Toleafoa JS Blatter Football Complex in Tuana’imato, which recently hosted the South Pacific Games.
New Zealand leads the Oceania zone qualifying series for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa after beating Vanuatu twice and Fiji once.
Micronesian Games
Marshalls Gets Nod For 2010
The Micronesian Games Council announced in early January that the Marshall Islands has won the bid to host the 2010 Games, an every-four-year event involving the 10 Micronesian area countries and territories. But the nod to the Marshalls, which comes just two-and-a-half-years from the date, will put great pressure on the country to prepare facilities to host the event.
Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee President Kenneth Kramer says it will be a challenge that depends in large part on the support of the government for infrastructure development. He is enthusiastic about the country hosting the 2010 event. “If they will support it financially for sports facilities then yes, we can go for it,” Kramer said. Discussions with the new government were just starting on the issue as Pacific Magazine went to press.
The Marshall Islands put in a bid after the last Micronesian Games in Saipan in 2006, competing with Yap of the Federated States of Micronesia for hosting rights. A decision for future Games hosting is normally made during the event, but in 2006, no one had a bid prepared, and then once bids were submitted, it took the Council more than year to decide. The event brings together as many as 1,500 athletes and officials from 10 islands for about 10 days of competition in a dozen or more sports.
“Two and a half years is a short time (to be ready to host the Games),” he said. But he also made the point that getting sports facilities built—including an all-weather track field—will benefit Marshallese athletes for many years beyond the 2010 games.
Gridiron
Seau, Tatupu, Polamalu Shine
Samoan Junior Seau missed his last chance of winning an elusive Super Bowl ring with the New England Patriots on February 3 when the undefeated Patriots went down to the New York Giants in the dying minutes of Super Bowl XLII.
Seau at 39 years of age, was only an occasional starter during the regular season, and is likely to retire this year.
He’s sure to be honored in the Hall of Fame. But despite a stellar career stretching from 1990, a coveted Super Bowl ring has eluded him. After the match on Feb. 3 he said, “It was a great journey…We just came up short.”
Meanwhile, Lofa Tatupu of the Seattle Seahawks and Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers were selected for the 2008 NFL Pro Bowl on February 10 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii.
