Athletes who want to represent Fiji at the Tokyo Olympic Games must keep on competing.

Team Fiji chef de mission Patrick Bower said, yesterday, this was important since it helps the athletes prepare for the Olympic qualifiers.

Bower said, with the current pandemic situation the much-needed competitive edge drives athletes to achieve their personal best.

“This a challenge for all athletes and their sporting federations to create a competitive environment of competition,” he said.

Bower said the Fiji Rugby Union had paved a way forward by devising the Super Sevens Series to help prepare the Fijian men’s and women’s teams.

This is even though both teams have qualified through merit.

Bower said it was crucial for athletes to participate in such high-level competition.

“All athletes must make an effort to see that they are in some sort of competition,” Bower said.

“They need this if they are to qualify and with the current situation, we can have our own local competition.”

Meanwhile, Bower said the pre-games training camp for Team Fiji will be at Oita Prefecture.

“It’s in the city of Oita and we are yet to finalise when teams will be going,” he said.

“We are aware that we cannot move into the Games Village, five days before competition and once competition is over, they must be out of the Games Village by 48 hours.”

Bower said Archery Fiji has put together a competition in February.

“World Archery Fiji will use the national tournaments as qualifying events after the cancellation of the Oceania tournament, which was supposed to be held in Fiji, this year,” he said.

“George Fong and Robert Elder are vying to represent Fiji but they are yet to achieve the minimum qualifying scores.

“There will be seven national tournaments regarding Archery which began on January 7 and this will see both reps achieve their scores if they are to travel to the Olympic Games. They are trying extremely hard to cross the mark.

“Judo hopeful Tevita Takayawa continues with his training in Japan, the lack of competition was a challenge, but he was grateful to his fellow university judokas for providing him competition on a daily basis. “Tevita’s current Olympic ranking is 84 in the 100kg category. There are a number of events happening now till June that Tevita is planning to participate in as his build-up for the Games.”