Ivan Wakit’s Athletics Profile- REVISED (19th April 2015)
Another of the many athletes from the ENBP island of Matupit, Ivan Wakit started his Athletics’ career as a high jumper. In the 1992 PNG National Championships in Lae, he finished in sixth position with a height of 1.70m.
In the following year, in Goroka, he made the final of the Open Men’s 200m, recording a time of 22.9 seconds.
In the 1994 National Championships in Lae he competed in the 100m and 200m, but won the 110m Hurdles (in 16.1 seconds). He had found his event, and never looked back.
Having to move from his home town of Rabaul, where Athletics was put on the back-burner because of the double eruption of Tavurvur and Vulcan, Ivan found his athletics career blossomed when he arrived at NSI in Goroka. He now found he had access to a full set of hurdles, a good grass track and experienced coaches.
In the 1995 National Championships in Lae, Ivan won the 400m (48.9), the 110m Hurdles (15.4) and the 400m Hurdles (52.9). He had moved up a gear or two and was now heading for significant performances in his first South Pacific Games in Tahiti.
At those Games Ivan turned-out to be the most successful of all the PNG athletes.
He narrowly won the 400m gold medal in the time of 47.77 seconds relegating SubulBabo to second position (47.80). Three days later he was a surprise winner of the 110m Hurdles in a windy 14.97 seconds. On the same day he was an emphatic winner of the 400m Hurdles in the time of 52.20 seconds, which was a new Games Record and PNG National Record.
In winning the 400m Hurdles, Ivan was continuing the great PNG tradition of one-lap hurdling. When BaoboDuaba-Neuendorf won in 1991 he started a winning streak that continues to this day.
Ivan prefaced his great performance in Tahiti by winning gold medals in those same events at the Arafura Games earlier in the year. We all knew that he was in good form.
The following year Ivan participated in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Unfortunately he developed shin splints, and was not able to perform to his best. A week prior to the Olympics, however, Ivan was in great form breaking his own National Record for the 400m Hurdles at a warm-up meet at Marietta, Georgia.
In 1997, however, he was back to his winning ways, winning both hurdles events at the Nationals in Goroka. This double was repeated at the Nationals in Lae in 1998.
While Ivan was to represent his country at the IAAF World Championships in Seville in 1999, his main focus had to be on defending his South Pacific Games titles that he had won four years before.
At the 1999 Nationals in Port Moresby he won the hurdles double yet again, and was ready for Guam.
Since Tahiti, though, a new formidable hurdler had arrived on the scene. He was Fiji’s JovesaNaivalu, who had won the bronze medal in the 110m Hurdles at the World Junior Championship in Sydney in 1996 and performed well at the Atlanta Olympics. It would be nigh impossible to defeat him in the sprint hurdles, but over the 400m Hurdles, anything could happen.
Jovesa Naivalu won the 110m Hurdles in the Games Record time of 14.32 seconds with Ivan coming fourth in 15.18 seconds.
The 400m Hurdles Final was a dramatic affair. JovesaNaivalu sped off to establish a huge lead over the rest of the field by the 200m mark, but then started to visibly slow. Using his superior 400m stamina Ivan gradually pegged back the lead until half-way down the home straight when he edged into the lead and won by 2/10th of a second in the time of 51.47 seconds to break his own Games Record and National Record. JovesaNaivalu also broke his Fiji National Record with his 51.67 seconds.
Claiming the bronze medal was a newcomer from PNG, MowenBoino. Without knowing it Ivan had now passed on the baton to the next generation of PNG 400m Hurdlers. The story continues.
Looking back on his athletics career the things that stand out in his memory are the three gold medals in Tahiti (1995), and participating in the Centenary Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. He gained great satisfaction in retaining his 400m Hurdles crown in Guam in 1999 and participating in the World Athletics Championships in Seville Spain in the same year.
Ivan now lives in Goroka with his wife Relvie and his two children Ivy (10 years of age) and Clyde (aged eight).
Written by: Bob Snow
Last Modified on 05/08/2015 17:54