Athletes did their Best for Papua New Guinea

Toea Wisil during her 100m qualifying race in Rio

By FIDELIS SUKINA

Toea Wisil Papua New Guinea and South Pacific Sprint Queen lined up with the worlds best sprinters yesterday at 12:22pm PNG time in Round One of the Womens 100m at the Olympic Games in Rio.

She came in confident to put on a personal best performance but couldn’t beat her much faster opponents in the sprint event.

She did well to get this far but didn’t qualify for the final heats, the pacific sprint queen ran a time of 11.48s to come in fourth place in her heat she came behind Elaine Thompson of Jamaica who ran 11.21s to finish first, coming in second was Brazilian Rosângela Santos who ran 11.25s and in third was Semoy Hackett from Trinidad and Tobago who ran a time of 11.35s.

 Wisil, who ran an Olympic qualifying time of 11.29 seconds in Fiji last month couldn’t make a better time than her qualification time.

Wisil taking a pose for the camerra

There are 8 heats in all for Round 1 and Toea ran in the 7th heat. Toea did not need to run in the preliminary round as she ran a qualifying time to make the Rio Olympics.

Only the top 2 finishers from each of the 8 heats plus the next 8 fastest racers advance to the semi-finals.

Toea finished 33rd in the overall, when ranked from the fastest to the slowest times in all eight heats.

Teams PNG has not won any medals as yet at the Olympics but have showed there determination and competitive spirit at the games.

One athlete that stood out was young Thadius Katua who at his age of 19 is certain to continue on and represent the country in international events to come one of the youngest boxers in the Rio Olympics Katua took on experienced Russian Adlan Abdurashidov .

A vocal Brazillian crowd cheered on Katua as he looked to cause an upset for the Russain but, Abdurashidov kept his cool and kept katua at bay with his reach, Katua showed heart with not much separating both boxers in all three rounds with Abdurashidov winning  all three rounds 29-28, 29-28, 30-27.

Thadius Katu during his fight with Russian Adlan Abdurashhidov

But the crowd, his coaches and Katua though they had the win, in a press release by PNG Olympic committee Katua and his coaches knew the young Carteret Islander had won.

Something that was not missed by, assistant Coach Joe Aufa, “the crowd are also judges, they watched the fight and they knew that Katua won. We all know Katua won.”

Katua bitterly disappointed after his bout believing he had done enough to claim victory, “Mi blip oilsem mi winim dispela pait.”

Morea Baru during his Lift

Coach Allan Nicolson also felt Katua had done enough to progress to the next round. “It is disappointing as over the full duration we felt Katua had dominated his opponent for a majority of the fight.”

“Katua was able to display his immense talent. It shouldn’t be forgotten that he is only 19 year’s old and he was taking on an experienced Russian fighter 7 year’s his elder.”

Rio 2016 is Katua’s first Olympics but this boxer with a bright future will no doubt be gracing the Olympic stage once again and when Tokyo 2020 comes along his opponents will be weary of coming up against him.

Weight lifter Morea Baru is the only weightlifter from the Commonwealth to be competing in the more elite A category of his weight division at the Rio Olympics.

And was “really excited” to be performing against the best in the world, Baru seemed to feed off the positive environment and said he felt as if he was “firing and enjoying” his lifts.  The Pacific Games gold medallist, showed he was ready to step up to the ultimate stage.

Raymond Ovinou during his match

In a statement by the PNG Olympic Committee Baru said he felt he had done his best, Baru said “I just wanted to do my best and make my family and country happy.” Baru’s 6th placed finish matches the best performance by a Team PNG athlete at the Olympics as Dika Toua had also finished 6th at the Athens 2004 Olympics.

Veteran Raymond Ovinou was the first Athlete to compete in the Judo, under 66KG Male category lost but through an Ippon with Uchi-mata, a move which carried out by his opponent saw him declared the winner.

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Still to take part Aunty and Nephew
Samantha and Maxemillion Kassman during their
Taekwando training 

PNG still has three athletes to take part in their events with Theo Pinau scheduled to take part in the Athletics 200m heats on Wednesday 17^th August. Maxemillion Kassman Taekwondo Will be taking part in the Men’s 68Kg on Thursday August 18 and Samantha Kassman will be taking part in the womens over 67kg Taekwondo on Saturday 20 August.