SavethePacificIslands

It was great to see that all the Pacific Islands Nations sent athletes to this years’ Olympic Games. Special congratulations go to the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu teams for their countries’ first appearance in the summer games! Also a mention for the best result for the Pacific Islands: Ele Opeloge narrowly missed out on a bronze medal for Samoa in the women’s weightlifting +75kg category. She was only one kilo short of third and finished with a personal best of a combined total of 269kg. Weightlifting proved to be the most popular amongst the Pacific Islanders with about a quarter of the total athletes competing in various categories with a total of 6 men and 3 women taking part. Islanders were also represented in various other sports from taekwondo to swimming to shooting. Here’s a quick summary of the countries and their teams.

Fiji: 6 athletes total, competing in athletics, judo, shooting, swimming and weightlifting.
Kiribati: 2 athletes total, competing in athletics and weightlifting.
Federated States of Micronesia: 5 athletes total, competing in athletics, swimming and weightlifting.
Marshall Islands: 5 athletes total, competing in athletics, swimming and taekwondo.
Nauru: 1 athlete competing in weightlifting.
Palau: 6 athletes total, competing in athletics, swimming and wrestling.
Papua New Guinea: 7 athletes total, competing in athletics, boxing, swimming, taekwondo and weightlifting.
Samoa: 6 athletes total, competing in archery, athletics, boxing, canoeing, swimming and weightlifting.
Solomon Islands: 4 athletes total, competing in athletics and weightlifting.
Tonga: 3 athletes total, competing in athletics and weightlifting.
Tuvalu: 3 athletes total, competing in athletics and weightlifting.
Vanuatu: 3 athletes total, competing in athletics and table tennis.

Congrats to all the athletes who competed and we look forward to seeing all the Pacific Islands at the 2012 London games!