PRESIDENT TRAVELS.
The current President of KAA, Mr. Tonana George, has been nominated to attend the IAAF Congress in Moscow in August 2013. He has had previous experience on the KAA Executive and is a qualified coach. He is due to arrive there on August 5th. and the Congress will take place two days later. It is likely that he will travel with many of the other representatives from the Oceania island countries.
THE FASTEST GOES.
Female sprinter Kabotaake Romeri is currently the fastest woman sprinter in Kiribati, will travel with Mr. George and will compete in the Preliminary rounds of the 100m.
UP-DATE IN MOSCOW !
Having obtained their Australian Transit visas quite smoothly, various delays - mostly in Australia - caused hold-ups in the obtaining of Russian visas and even worse in the return of the two passports to Kiribati. There were strong possibilities of no-one in fact travelling to Moscow. It appears that the two passports finally arrived ON THE SAME FLIGHT as the two were waiting to travel ! One can imagine the worry and uncertainty this caused.
Both Tonana and Kabotaake (who celebrated her 18th. birthday en route to Russia !) have arrived safely and have welcomed the assistance of their Russian attaches in moving in and being shown around. During their stay Kabotaake will be expected to give a blood sample, in company with all the other athletes. She will then become one of the few I-Kiribati sports people to have been through drug tests.
Kabotaake was scheduled to take part in the Preliminaries of the W100m but the published programme does not show any Preliminaries (different from the M100m.) Thus it seems that she will go direct into the Heats and thus may find herself running against one of the top world sprint stars when she reports to the call-room on Sunday (August 11th.)
CONGRESS DECISION.
Tonana was expected to attend the IAAF Congress on Wednesday (August 7th.). At this year's Congress it was decided that convicted drugs cheats would be given a FOUR YEAR BAN with effect from 2015. Many members would prefer a LIFE BAN but it is recognised that this would transgress the "right to trade" of those athletes involved.
RESULT.
Competing from lane 8 (of 9) in Heat 3 (of 6) of the W100m. on Sunday morning, August 11th., Kabotaake had to survive a faulty start by another competitor and a general warning. Her start, as you will see from the third image, was very slow with a reaction time of 0.293 seconds. Thus off the blocks she was already TWO METRES BEHIND all the others. She finally finished 8th. in 13.39 whuch was reported as an electronic PB. The USA winner of her Heat clocked 10.94. The slowest qualifiers for the semi-finals ran 11.41.
By comparison, other girls from Pacific islands finished as follows:- Solomons 13.53; Nauru 12.38; Tahiti 12.84; PNG 11.61; Cook Islands 12.39; and Palau 13.25. In spite of her excellent time, the athlete from PNG did not qualify for the semi-finals.
AND THE ISLANDS' MEN ?
To complete the picture, the men had Preliminaries from which they had to qualify for the actual Heats. They achieved as follows:- American Samoa 11.21; Vanuatu 11.53; Northern Marianas 11.65; Marshall Islands 11.65; Micronesia 11.86; Fiji 10.53; Guam 11.39; Tuvalu 11.57; and Tonga 10.93. The brilliant time of Ratu Banuve Tabakaukoro from Fiji made him the first islander to qualify for Heats in a World Championship.
When coaches and officials in Kiribati see this evidence, maybe they will consider sending the fastest BOY in two years time !
Last Modified on 18/10/2013 22:25