Events confirmed for para-athletes

Para athletes from special schools around the country will be participating in three events in this year’s Fiji Secondary Schools Athletics Final (Fiji Finals).

This was confirmed to SUNsports yesterday by Fiji Secondary Schools Athletics Association (FSSAA) secretary Biu Colati.

“The events are long jump, short put and 100 metres track events for the boys and girl’s categories,” he said.

Colati said the para-athletes’ competition would be different from the rest of the schools during the Fiji Finals.

He said they are excited that para-athletes are part of the Fiji Finals this year.

“They were uncertain in the first place but we encouraged them to participate despite being disabled as they are capable of what they can do,” he said.

Colati said they would be learning from each other.

Paralympics Athletics coach Freddy Fatiaki said the move by FSSAA was a great start.

From his perspective as a person with a disability and someone involved in athletics, he felt it was an important step towards getting athletes included in secondary schools’ athletics meets.

“It’s a beginning and we’re hoping to improve as we go through the years and it’s a start for us this year, working with only one of our special schools to be part of the programme,” he said.

Fatiaki said that apart from Athletics Fiji, they were happy that some of their students from special schools would be part of the programme in this year’s Fiji Finals and that it was a good start from their end.

He said they are hopeful that their para-athletes would continue participating in the Fiji Finals.

“We’ll see how it goes this year and we’ll put some structures in place in terms of how we can continue and get in more athletes as we grow the sport into being part of the secondary school’s athletics competition,” he added.

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