TRAVEL, TRAVEL & MORE TRAVEL – WORDS BOB SNOW
The Pacific Ocean is huge. We all know that. Those of us who are presently in Palau for the Mini Games will realise how much travel there is to reach this Micronesian nation.
To give you an idea as to the distances involved in the Pacific / Oceania, here are a few distances between “your home” and the current home of the Mini Games in Palau. Congratulations to all of you who have made the long journey. I know you will be glad you made the effort.
Tahiti to Palau 8790 km
Cook Islands to Palau 7834 km
Samoa to Palau 6337 km
Wallis & Futuna to Palau 5750 km
Fiji to Palau 5534 km
Port Moresby to Palau only 2346 km – almost a near neighbour.
All this air travel costs a lot of money. Congratulations again to all those who had fund raising for their competitors, the families who sacrificed to pay their levy, and (of course) the commercial sponsors and governments who came to the party to help their teams to safely reach Palau for the Mini Games.
Think now about Palau when it must come to the Southern Hemisphere for these wonderful Pacific Games. In two years, they will have to travel the 8790 km to the 2027 Pacific Games in Tahiti. With so much money needed to travel to our wonderful Games it is sad that this money cannot be spent on developing talent. This talent can only be observed and recognised in events such as the Pacific Games.
Hard to know what we can do, as reducing the size of the Pacific Ocean is beyond my powers at present!
How do the other parts of the world cope with this problem of distance.
Below I have copied from my History of the Pacific Games, Chapter #33. It looks at the problem in other parts of the world.
How do the small island nations of the Caribbean fare when competing in a huge multi-sport continental games – the Pan-American Games? If the USA decides to send a very strong team, then the small nations do not do so well. The USA does not always send a top-level team – at least that is in Athletics. It is hit and miss for the small nations. They do, however, have smaller multi-sport games in which to compete – without the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and the other major sporting powers taking the majority of medals. Some of the alternatives are below –
- Caribbean Games – for the Caribbean Islands and selected nations on the South American continent – Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana. There are normally 7 sports and 29 nations attending.
- Central American and Caribbean Games – since 1926.
- Central American and Caribbean Beach Games – with 26 nations attending.
- CARIFTA Games – only Athletics and for U20 and U18 athletes. Just for those nations in the Caribbean Free Trade Association. It is held annually with the first event in 1972. These Games have had 50 editions since the first one.
In Europe, there are many nations of varying sizes. How would a small country like Andorra (population 80,000) fare against Germany, France, the UK and Russia? Not all that well. So, there has been the introduction of the Games of the Small States of Europe – with nine small nations competing in up to 12 different sports. The 2023 Games were held in Malta and the Games are planned for Andorra (2025) and Monaco (1927). Iceland and Cyprus are the power-house countries in these Games, but all nine nations have won a good share of gold medals since they were started in 1985.
In some of these smaller Games it is possible to go to the competition city/venue by bus or car. No long, expensive plane trips.
But all this is just wishful thinking. We do live in a huge ocean, and it is part of our special identity and our special way of life.
Start saving now for the next long journey, from your home to Tonga in October when the Pacific Express gets rolling once again. See you all in Nuku’alofa.
In the meantime, we have many days of wonderful competition ahead of us starting on 4th July – the US Independence Day Celebration.
– Bob Snow
—-ENDS—