New events

TWO new events will be introduced at the 2020 Coca-Cola Games.

Fiji Secondary Schools Athletics Association secretary Vuli Waqa said the events would be competed for in the upper grades.

“It is going to be competed for in the two upper grades in both the girls’ and boys’ division,” Waqa said.

“This is specifically in the intermediate and senior girls’ and boys’ grades.”

Waqa clarified the two events will be the 100m and 110m hurdles.

TWO new events will be introduced at the 2020 Coca-Cola Games

Fiji Secondary Schools Athletics Association secretary, Vuli Waqa added that the events will be competed for in the upper grades.

“It is going to be competed for in the two upper grades in both the girls and boys division,” Waqa said.

“This is specifically in the intermediate and senior girls and boys grades.”

Waqa further clarified that the two confirmed events are going to be the 100m hurdles and 110m hurdles.

“It is going to be the 100m hurdles and 110m hurdles – 100m hurdles for the girls and 110m hurdles for the boys,” he said.

The retired schoolteacher said the FSSAA expected all the schools to participate in the two new events.

‘All the schools in Fiji because at the moment we are more or less on equal footing as far as the availability of equipment are concerned whether it be a school located in a remote area in the East, prominent schools in Suva, any West school, North or even the schools in the maritime areas.

“Someone did come up with the hurdle design in our last meeting and we will see what we can do in early 2020. We may have to try and provide the equipment for the zonal meets.”

It is expected that the athletics enthusiasts will be able to witness the introduction of the two new events as early as the respective schools interhouse competitions which will set the platform for the respective zone meets.

“Of course if they want to compete in the finals they will have to do that at the zones,” he said.

And most likely steeplechase can be another new event to be witnessed at the 2020 Coke Games.

“We may introduce the steeplechase event which is going to be for our delegates to decide in our meeting in 2020 – we did talk about it in our last meeting but the two that have been confirmed are the hurdles.”

It could be classified as an invitation and or an open event at the moment however everything will require the formal endorsement of the committee.

“It will be just an open or an invitational event – probably in the 3000 metres where both the genders are allowed to compete together in one event so that the interest is generated for that particular event,” Waqa said.

The annual Coca-Cola Fiji Secondary Schools National Athletics Championships which is dubbed as the biggest secondary schools athletics meet in the world is held during the last week of term one school year.

About 2500 athletes from more than 150 secondary schools in the country competed at the games this year.

Beverage giants Coca-Cola has a fiveyear contract with the FSSAA which is worth over a million dollars.