Transcript
FA'AMAUSILI TAIVA AH YOUNG: It emanated from our research in 2014. I think the posing question that we have been asking is why has Samoa not performed to competitive advantage in elite sports? One of the findings that we found out is that there is not enough competition locally so that was how we decided to have a competition. In actual fact we now have three competitions: one is in April, one is in June and the main one is the Samoa Games. There is a need to have ongoing competitions to create that competitiveness with athletes.
VINNIE WYLIE: So when you say disappointing performances at international level are you talking Commonwealth Games, Olympics - events like that?
FT: For 53 years now records show and our research shows that our performance is not up to expectation and that's why we've been making that research because we wanted to find out as to why we continued to stagnate, as far as our performance internationally is concerned.
VW: So are these primarily Olympic and Commonwealth kinds of sports or how many sports does this entail?
FT: We're talking about the Commonwealth Games, the Olympic Games and the Pacific Games. For April we look at the primary schools, which is the grassroots level, and then in June, for the Olympic Day, we look at the secondary schools and the community organisations and then it culminates to a major competition at the end of each year. Basically, we're trying to encourage people to realise that there's a lot of Olympic sports that aren't being played here in Samoa. Once they learn about it then they can have choices whether this is the sport that they want.
VW: So locally-based athletes that have represented Samoa at a Commonwealth Games, at a Pacific Games or an Olympic Games, would they be expected to participate in this as well - those elite athletes - or is this primarily for more raw, new athletes that want to get a start in the sports?
FT: The actual competition has been left open to the national federations. If they want the competition with just the elite in it that's up to them and if they want to include elite and the new raw talent that we are looking for that's fine with us. So long as we start to identify elite athletes - that's the main purpose of all these games to start identifying elite athletes so that we can start nurturing them and developing them.
VW: Will this be an annual thing?
FT: Yes it is, it's annual. That's set down because we really need to make sure that we have a lot of competitions locally and then we will try and send them overseas to try and compete in international tournaments way in advance of Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games and that.
VW: And where does the funding for this event come from?
FT: Most of the funding will come from the International Olympic Committee but also there's a lot of local support and sponsorship that we're looking for.
VW: So the first of these events will be early next month - how many athletes do you anticipate will take part?
FT: For Upolu alone we're anticipating about 1000 athletes to participate because that's coming from the community organisations and the schools. For Savai'i we're expecting about 600 or 700 participants.
