Photo: Solomon Islands athletes surround the newly crowned women 5000m champion Betty Babalu last week. 09092750
THE Solomon Islands athletes have lost a lot from its government’s decision to pull out from the 2015 Pacific Games bid.
Team Solomon athletics coach Martin Rara said the decision will not help the future development of its athletes.
“If we would have had the bid on and won the rights to host the games, there would have been infrastructure and development taking place due to the hosting of the games … we would have had the new sporting facilities,” he said.
“And these new facilities would have been a good use for development of our current and future athletes.”
The 2009 Pacific Mini Games star Betty Babalu and veteran runner Chris Votu have shown that the Solomon Islands have some talented athletes that are capable of winning medals in regional meets.
Rara said the decision to pull out from the Pacific Games bid was by government and the Solomon Islands National Olympic Committee had no say on that.
“We (Solomon Islands National Olympic Committee) have not been formally made aware of for what reasons the government has opted out from the bid,” he said.
“The government delegation assigned presented their agenda in the parliament and the members of the parliament didn’t approve it.
“Their reason we heard was that the country is not prepared to host the Pacific Games.”
However, according to Rara the government’s decision to pull out from the bid will not stop its athletes from participating and winning in the international games.
“Actually as part of our development programme we are planning to send two athletes – Betty Babalu and Chris Votu to overseas for training,” he said.
Solomon Islands have brought a 37 member contingent for the PMG and have won three gold, one silver and one bronze medal so far. - Rashneel Kumar: Cook Islands News
Last Modified on 30/09/2009 07:09