Team Fiji departs on Saturday

Team Fiji will leave on Saturday to participate in the 11th Pacific Mini Games on June 17-25. They will travel directly from Nadi Airport at 10am to Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, in a chartered flight.

This was confirmed by team manager Anushil Kumar yesterday.

Team Fiji will be joined in the same flight by athletes and technical officials from Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tonga, Kiribati and Vanuatu.

Kumar indicated they were not taking the 81 athletes to make numbers but win medals.

Banuve Tabakaucoro will travel directly from Australia to Saipan while Yeshnil Karan will be in the country on Friday.

The duo were part of the Gather Adjust Prepare and Sustain (GAPS) programme in Australia.

Athletics Fiji has a team of 13 athletes and officials, while weightlifting has the biggest number of 19 .

“Their progress has been impressive with their timing,” he said.

“It’s not a holiday trip for us we are going for medals so definitely all the teams have been preparing well and they’ve been selected based on the medal prospects.

“Weightlifting is our biggest team. It is a sport with most number of medals available so we are expecting the team to do well,” Kumar added.

Sponsorship

The Motibhai Group has continued its sponsorship for Team Fiji athletes to the Games by providing hygiene kits.

They had previously partnered with Team Fiji in 2019 ahead of the Pacific Games in Samoa and in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, donating Rexona personal care products like deodorants and roll-ons to athletes and officials who represented the country.

Prior to that, the company also joined hands with Team Fiji whereby the national 7s team won gold from the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Motibhai Group marketing manager Abraham Gomes said: “With 20 countries participating in nine different sports and over 1,000 international athletes competing for gold in Saipan, our little donation will go a long way in boosting team morale and definitely make a difference in performance.”

Team Fiji’s Chef de Mission to the 2022 Pacific Mini Games, Ajay Ballu, thanked the Motibhai Group for their support.