View Article

Cook Islands to send biggest team ever to Olympics
RAROTONGA - Team Cook Islands
will be taking their biggest Olympics team ever to the Rio Olympics
in Brazil next month.
Nine athletes from various sporting federations have been confirmed
for the games, to be held from August
5 to 21.
Cook Islands Sports and National
Olympic Committee (CISNOC) gen-
eral secretary Robert Graham confirmed this year’s Olympic Games
would have the biggest contingent
ever from the Cook Islands.
He said the official team, including
the flag bearer, would be named next
week.
Graham also confirmed Cook Islands swimming sensation Wesley
Tikiariki Roberts had been given the
greenlight to compete at the games
as a wild card entrant.
He will be joined by weight-lifter
Luisa Peters who received an Oceania universality placing at the Rio
Olympics.
Other athletes to represent the
country at the Rio Games are swimmer Tracy Keith-Matchitt, Alex Beddoes and Patricia Taea from athlet-
ics, Teau McKenzie and Taua Elisa
from sailing and siblings Ella and
Bryden Nicholas from canoeing.
“I think the selection criteria that
we have set has raised the bar and
the standard for national federations
and their athletes to meet in order
to make it through to the Olympics,”
Graham said.
 PACNEWS
Ashok Patel (director
RC Manubhai Group)
presents a cheque for
$20,000 to PM Voreqe
Bainimarama in Suva
yesterday.
Picture: SUPPLIED
$20k for 7s team
Group of companies give PM Rio support
By VUNIWAQA BOLA-BARI
THE Vodafone Fiji 7s team received
a boost to their “Road to Gold”
campaign yesterday as Prime
Minister Voreqe Bainimarama received $20,000 for them.
The cheque was received from
R.C Manubhai group of companies’
director Ashok Patel.
PM Bainimarama said they
were grateful to the company for
the kind gesture which would go a
long way in Fiji’s bid to get its first
Summer Olympics gold medal via
the Vodafone Fiji 7s team.
“We thank RC Manubhai for this
wonderful donation to the Fiji
team that’s preparing to go to Rio
and I know that it will go a long
way into helping them to get our
gold,” Bainimarama said.
Patel said the gift was from the
entire group of company and they
were happy to be of help and be associated with Ben Ryan’s crusade.
“I think this money is very useful for them.
“I think this is part and parcel
of our responsibility and our social
responsibility,” Patel added.
Meanwhile the Fiji Association
of Sports and National Olympic Committee (FASANOC) on
Wednesday confirmed that the
“Road to Gold” campaign was not
sanctioned by them.
This meant that donations made
via the committee by sponsors
would not be associated with Team
Fiji.
“Sponsors who have supported
Team Fiji through FASANOC are
granted rights to associate with
the Olympic Games event and
team Fiji.
Team Fiji partners and sponsors
include the Government of Fiji,
and International Olympic Solidarity.
Its gold sponsors are Vodafone,
BLK, and its silver sponsors are
Fiji Water, BSP, JR White, Star
Printery, Dahia, Teivovo and The
Fiji Times,” the statement from FASANOC stated.
Stepanova’s comeback falls flat
Yulia Stepanova
of Russia.
Picture: REUTERS
AMSTERDAM - Yulia Stepanova’s much-heralded return to action turned into a damp squib on
Wednesday when the Russian whistleblower, running as an independent athlete, dropped out of her 800
metres heat with a foot injury having been off the pace throughout.
Stepanova has not raced since
September because of the ban on
Russian athletes but raced under
the European Athletics Association (EAA) flag at the European
championships after the sport’s
governing body had requested she
be given special dispensation to
compete as an independent.
“Yulia is very weak psychologically and she can only run when
she has been doping,” her former
coach Vladimir Kazarin told Sport
Express newspaper.
42 THE FIJI TIMES —FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2016
COVERAGE
O
COURTESY OF
“If she is now training without
the help of doping, then she won’t
achieve anything and won’t get to
her former levels.”
Stepanova, who turned 30 on
Sunday, is hoping the International Olympic Committee will allow
her to run in the Rio Games under
a neutral flag and has the qualifying standard, but she looked desperately off the pace from the gun
on Wednesday.
Wearing black and white striped
kit with an EAA badge, she received a ripple of polite applause
when introduced to the sparse
crowd but was adrift of the pack
within the first 100 metres.
She came through the halfway
point around two seconds down
before pulling up midway through
the second lap and reaching for her
right foot.
 REUTERS
Duo
confirmed
for Rio
PORT VILA - VASANOC
has confirmed the participation of Boxer, Lionel Boe
Warawara and Judoka Joe
Mahit with the International Olympic Committee
(IOC), International Boxing Association (AIBA) and
International Judo Federation (IJF).
Warawara’s
outstanding performances at the
PNG2015 Games, the 2015
Oceania and World Championships no doubt worked
in his favor for IOC and
AIBA to award him a Tripartite Invitation Place.
Mahit has qualified on
merit under the Oceania
Continental Quota and is
the second Judoka after
Nazario Fiakaifonu did the
same for the London 2012
Olympics.
So far, the 4 athletes
confirmed for Rio2016 are,
Yoshua Shing in Table Tennis, Luigi Teilemb in Rowing, Lionel Warawara in
Boxing and Joe Mahit in
Judo.
This is the first time that
Vanuatu’s athletes to an
Olympic Games are made
up of those who qualified
on merit or through the internationally competitive
Tripartite Invitations and
not merely as Wild Cards.
Table Tennis is making
its third appearance since
the 2008 Beijing Games.
Rowing is appearing in
its first Olympics.
Boxing is making a
comeback to the Olympics
after its appearance in our
first Games in 1988.
And Rio 2016 is Judo’s
second Olympics.
In 2003, VASANOC established the NODS (National Olympic Development Squads) Project as an
Elite Sport Development
Program mainly to qualify
Athletes for the Olympics
on merit or through the
Tripartite Invitations.
Table Tennis, Rowing
and Judo are in this Project
and through Warawara’s
Gold in the 2015 Oceania
Championships,
Boxing
has been re-included in
NODS again.  PACNEWS
Nibali’s
off-day
LE LIORAN, France - Italian Vincenzo Nibali started
the Tour de France looking
to assess his form after a
gruelling Giro d’Italia and
he came up with a tough
answer yesterday — he is
not quite there yet.
The 2014 Tour champion
has been tasked with helping his young compatriot
Fabio Aru, but he was not
even able to do that during
the fifth stage, cracking in
one of the short but tough
climbs of the day in the
Massif Central.
Nibali’s
coach
Paolo
Slongo hinted on Wednesday that his rider could
make his own move at some
point if he had the legs.
Clearly, however, he is already out of contention
and the hierarchy at Astana is much clearer.
“We were saying at the
beginning that we did not
have any indication on his
form, apparently he has
not recuperated from the
Giro,” Astana team manager Alexandre Vinokourov
said.
Nibali is hoping to peak
toward the end of the Tour,
which finishes on July 24,
and hold his form until the
Olympics road race in Rio
on Aug. 6.
 REUTERS