DAY FIVE RESULTS AND FINAL MEDAL TALLY
WORDS: BOB SNOW

On the final day of competition there were only two events to be held, and they began well before the sun came up. They were the Half Marathon Road races for Women and Men.

The winner of the Women’s race was Tania Tan (NMI – 1:28:49) from Natalia Prado Alfonso (NCL – 1:32:11) and Dianah Matekali (SOL – 1:32:29). The medal winners all had a good pedigree and delivered as their team expected. There were seven in the race. In positions 4, 5 & 6 were athletes from French Polynesia. Expect a strong distance team from Tahiti in two years’ time. They have a good tradition of mixing Triathlon and Athletics competitions to ensure their runners have good stamina.

The Men’s Half Marathon was won, as expected, by Yeshnil Karan (FIJ – 1:14:58) from Junior Geejay (SOL – 1:15:23) and Damien Troquenet (PYF – 1:15:31). Ten athletes were in this final – to bring the 2025 Mini Games to a conclusion. Yeshnil continues to stamp his authority on the Pacific Islands distance events.

The Athletics Medal Tally is as follows –

Country/Team Gold Silver Bronze Total

Papua New Guinea 17 20 13 50
Fiji 11 11 8 30
Australia 7 5 4 16
Guam 3 3 2 8
Wallis & Futuna 3 1 2 6
Northern Marianas 3 0 1 4
French Polynesia 2 3 7 12
New Caledonia 2 3 1 6
Samoa 1 1 1 3
Tonga 1 0 3 4
Marshall Islands 1 0 1 2
Cook Islands 1 0 1 2
Solomon Islands 0 4 3 7
Vanuatu 0 1 2 3
Nauru 0 1 2 3
Palau 0 0 1 1

Following the final events, and before the Closing Ceremony, NOC’s from the various countries were invited to nominate sportswomen and sportsmen from their team for various awards.

Oceania Athletics looked at the medal winners in our sport and named their “nominations” for most outstanding female and male athletes. They were Tania Tan (NMI), Heleina Young (FIJ), Yeshnil Karan (FIJ) and Hugh Grant (GUM). I would like to add

the name of Daniel Baul (PNG) to the list acknowledging that I am Honorary Life Member of Athletics PNG and might be accused of bias.

I then looked at their main individual performances and ranked them according to the World Athletics’ Scoring Tables. Then I saw where they ranked in the World Athletics

Ranking Lists for Oceania. The Mini Games results were already in the lists.

PERFORMANCES – USING WORLD ATHLETICS’ TABLES & OCEANIA RANKINGS

Hugh Kent

1500m 1st 4:01.37 839 points 331st

5000m 2nd 15:37.19 701 points Not on list

10000m 1st 33:03.34 713 points Not on list

Yeshnil Karan

5000m 1st 15:27.62 729 points Not on list

Half Mar 1st 1:14:58 661 points Not on list

Daniel Baul

400mH 1st 51.55 1054 points 7th

400m 2nd 48.35 958 points 60th

2 Relay golds

Heleina Young

200m 1st 24.01 1035 points 39th

400m 1st 56.05 975 points 71st

Relay silver

Tania Tan

10000m 1st 38:03.57 841 points 16th on list

Half Mar 1st 1:28.40 779 points Not on list

5000m 3rd 18:20.97 806 points 144th

When I say “not on list” it means that the World Athletics Oceania Lists do not go deep enough to include this performance.