Oceania Athletics Championships – Media Release #1
With less than three weeks to go before the start Oceania Athletics Championships, we are excited to announce more than 1,100 athletes from more than 22 countries around the Pacific who will converge on Suva.
The Championships are the largest Area Championships to have ever been conducted in the Oceania Area. Their increased significance leading into the Paris Olympic Games and the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, makes them an event not to miss.
Fiji has chosen a strong contingent selected from the recently conducted Fiji Finals who will go head-to-head with the best in the Area. Australia will be looking to the Oceania Athletics Championships to finalise their team to Paris and after their recent success at the World Relay Championships in the Bahamas their athletes look hard to beat.
The event which will include the Senior, Para Championships and Under 18 Area Championships will also see the best Masters Athletes from the region competing at the Oceania Masters Championships. This is the first time, all of these events have been held side by side at a Championship event, a world-first!
In addition, the Championships will include the Under 20 and Under 16 Team events which will give the local schools and clubs the opportunity to have another battle and find out who are the leading teams across all athletics’ events.
At the Fiji Finals, the Senior Men’s 100 metres was convincingly won by Suva Grammar’s Semesa Caginivalu in a time of 10.47 (w 0.7) which makes him the fastest Pacific Islander over 100 metres in 2024. His performance was also only .04 outside of the Flying Fijian, Banuve Tabakaucoro’s National record time of 10.43 set in 2011. Semesa will have to run this fast at the Oceania Athletics Championships to ensure a berth in the final.
The Championships which will include the Oceania Para Athletics Championships will also be an opportunity for our region’s best Para Athletes to cement their selection to the Paralympics and with athletes from across the Pacific competing, these events will be hotly contested.
The Championships which commence on Saturday, 1 June will be proceeded by the first Continental Tour Meet (June 1st Afternoon/Evening) to be held outside of Australia and New Zealand and will give athletes an opportunity to post the all-important ranking points that are needed to qualify for the Olympic Games.
The Fiji public is invited to head to the HFC Bank Stadium between the 1-8 June to join in the action at what will be without a doubt the best athletics we have seen in Oceania!
For more information contact: Yvonne Mullins +61 418885496 OR +679 7127260
