One of New Zealand’s most celebrated athletes is opening up her on life journey on the big screen.

Double Olympic shot put champion Dame Valerie Adams’ feature documentary, More Than Gold, is centred around the Tongan/Kiwi’s preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

However, the film touches on Adams struggles with balancing her role as a mum as well as memories involving hardship, loss and relationships.

From penning an autobiography, to championing many causes, Adams said that the timing felt right to do a documentary, especially with how her sporting career had been in the media for years.

“It’s a way to tell your whole story,” she said.

“What the media tells or how they write your story is from their perspective or what you’ve told them but it’s not exactly what truly goes on behind closed doors or what’s happening in one’s life.”

“My documentary really brings people into that journey and takes people throughout that journey from the very start.”

Being a role model
Dame Valerie’s impressive sporting resume includes competing at five Olympic Games earning two golds, one silver and one bronze medal in the shot put.

She has won 17 New Zealand shot put titles and was awarded the Halberg Sportswoman of the Year for seven consecutive years from 2006.

The video trailer of the documentary.                               Video: Transmission Films

Of Tongan and English heritage, Dame Valerie was born in Rotorua but spent some of her childhood in her mother’s home country Tonga. Eventually, Adams and her family returned to New Zealand where she remained in South Auckland for the rest of her adolescent years.

When asked if she ever felt pressured to be a role model once she started succeeding as an athlete, she said it’s an automatic responsibility.

“Where I come from, my upbringing — all the stigma behind South Auckland — I think it was just a natural progression into that role, and I do take some type of responsibility to make sure I do set a good example and that I am a role model to the young women and also young men that have the same upbringing as I do.”

“At the end of the day it’s up to them to grasp whatever talent or passion they have and be prepared to work for it because the world is bigger than South Auckland — but you never forget where you come from.”

Be comfortable with the uncomfortable
It was important to Adams to be authentic in her film as she wanted audiences to understand the sacrifices she undertook to pursue her sporting dreams.

She said the film will resonate with all people whether they are athletes as there are many relatable themes, especially towards the youth.

“There’s a lot of challenges that people face in life and there’s a lot of challenges that youth face in life as well,” Adams said.

“Society is hard, society is mean sometimes and quite difficult, but I want them to know that they are loved but also to inspire them to set some goals and look for something bigger and better.”

“I really just want to share my life so that people can see the nitty-gritty parts of it, the raw parts of it, the trauma but also seeing you work through all of that.”

“Someone gave me some really good advice a few years ago and it was ‘you gotta be comfortable with being uncomfortable’ — and in life you’re going to be put in uncomfortable situations so you’ve gotta train your mind to say you’re cool being here even though you’re not, and work through those awkward situations because it’s going to you make you a more confident and stronger person.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji Olympic rugby sevens captain Seremaia “Jerry” Tuwai’s parents couldn’t hold back their tears and kept thanking God for the blessings they have received.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama yesterday announced on his Twitter page that the government was planning a $1 million (NZ$690,000) reward package for the national team.

A special package only for captain and two-time Olympian Jerry Tuwai includes a house.

His parents were emotional and hugged each other when they were asked how did they feel about these plans from the prime minister.

“Our prayers have been answered,” Vunisa said

“We always pray for our family and for Jerry’s life. The hard work, the pain the struggle has finally been answered.

“I told my wife before the team played in Tokyo that whoever walks in Gods sight will be blessed and God has indeed blessed my family.”

Duty to his country
Vunisa said that he had encouraged Tuwai to take up an overseas contract and he always replied that he had a duty to his country.

His mum, Serewaia Vualiku, said for the family to be away from each for five months was really hard.

“It wasn’t like this before, even in 2016,and we both knew that within that period he wanted to see his children. He is close to his family, especially his kids.

Rugby doesn’t just let us forget our troubles –– it inspires us to overcome them.

The victories of our men’s 7s and Fijiana have inspired us all. To give back, we’re announcing a million-dollar reward package for these heroes.

Yes, that includes a house for Capt. Jerry. pic.twitter.com/Itjj1ZILkl

— Frank Bainimarama (@FijiPM) August 6, 2021

“But we kept encouraging him never to give up, the road hasn’t ended yet. It’s his dream and he should focus on his dream.

“For us as parents we know he is chosen for this. This is his destiny and God gave him this and we are grateful for his everlasting love on my family.

“For his children they are all counting the days when they will finally get to see their father.

“As we welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement, we also give thanks to the Almighty that without him we will never achieve this.”

Grateful for support
The family is indeed grateful to the support from their families, friends, their neighbours and everyone who has been supporting the national team and Tuwai.

As they wait for his arrival from quarantine, the family plan to hold a small family celebration.

“With the what we are going through now unfortunately we cannot hold a big celebration compared with what was done in 2016 but we will celebrate his achievement as a family.”

The pledged package covers both the men’s sevens, which won gold at Tokyo, and the women’s team Fijiana, which won bronze.

Paulini Curuqara is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It might have been just a bronze medal to some people but for the Fijiana team — especially Sesenieli Donu — it was the fruit of sacrifice and a token of appreciation for her village of Vatukarasa in Nadroga.

After an intense competition for the bronze medal with Great Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan, the country’s women sevens rugby team bagged their first ever medal after defeating their former coloniser 21-12 last Saturday.

The excitement spread like wildfire in Vatukarasa as one of their very own has her name down in the history book especially at a hard-hit time when Fiji is battling the deadly delta variant of covid-19.

“This is gold to us to see that one of our own women got to the top and played against teams from bigger countries,’’ Donu’s uncle Jone Domonakibau said.

“After losing both her parents at a very young age, Sesenieli became determined to be one of the best players in rugby and she has proved herself.

“She would lose herself to training and even if it meant for her to be surrounded by men as this was a male-dominated sport. She never gave up.”

Donu was picked for the sevens squad after she proved herself worthy to be with the team at the 2020 Women’s Skipper Cup games in Lautoka.

Deserving trip
The 25-year-old’s Olympic journey out of Fiji is her first time in a foreign land and Domonakibau said it was a deserving trip after what she had been through.

“We are so blessed to have witnessed her rugby life at the Olympics and we look forward to more magical works of God in her life as we know she is a capable child.”

He knew that Donu would do wonders when they would see her returning from her training at the beach near their village early in the morning.

“She would wake up around 4 to 5am in the morning when the village is silent and run to the beach and train.

“It was not a surprise to many of us waking up to her return after an intense exercise.
He added that the village was organising a celebration for the 25-year-old when she returns.

“We are aware of the restrictions in place and so we would do something really small yet meaningful to show how proud we are of her.

Captain thanks Fijians
Like Donu, the rest of the history-making team could not contain their happiness as a video by the Fiji Rugby Union featuring the Fijian captain Rusila Nagasau saying “thank you” to people in the country.

“I want to thank the girls for standing up and winning the bronze today,” she said.

“To our family and friends back at home, I would like to say a big vinaka vakalevu (thank you)… thank you very much for your prayers and support.

“To the government, thank you so much for helping us throughout the five months of quarantine back in Fiji.”

PM congratulates Fijiana
In his official Facebook page, the Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama congratulated the team of women for the legacy created in Tokyo.

“Ahead of the Rio Olympics, there were 200 registered women rugby players in Fiji. Now, there are more than 1000.

“With the eyes of the young women of Fiji upon these heroes — no doubt we’ll soon see many thousands more.

The prime minister said the best was yet to come from the team.

The women’s sevens team will return to Fiji next Tuesday and spend 14 days in quarantine before rejoicing the win with their loved ones afterward.

Josefa Babitu is a final-year student journalist at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He is also the current student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

We have this pretty fiction that the world is made up of approximately 200 politically autonomous nation-states. This in the entrenched ‘Wilsonian’ view of the political world that, in particular, was sort-of realised after World War One; a view that rendered the national empires (such as the British Empire) of the past obsolete.

In the liberal world order, the ideal structure of international polities would be 750 nation states each with between (say) three million and twenty million people. (OK, the Olympic Games and the United Nations would struggle to cope with 750 independent members; but that’s not a problem for a liberal order. In a true liberal order, each entity is too small to influence the order itself. In such a liberal order, the collective good is meant to happen through a kind of international marketplace; in marketplaces, properly understood, ‘competition’ and ‘cooperation’ are more like synonyms than antonyms.)

The twenty-first century is a quasi-liberal ‘rules-based’ order of nation states with populations ranging from about 1,000 to 1.5 billion, with a number of hegemon states. At present the major hegemons are: Washington, London, Berlin, Moscow, New Delhi, Beijing, Tehran, Riyadh. Minor hegemons include Paris, The Hague, Copenhagen, Addis Ababa, Ankara, and Wellington.

Nation States: Peoples or Territories?

Historically, a nation was a group of people – an uber-tribe – defined by ethnicity, language and culture. Thus, in the early days of nations, there were no formal territorial borders; though certain geographical features formed practical borders: seas, rivers, mountain chains, deserts. At some times in history, seas were the principal borders; at other times, seas became highway connectors leaving mountains and deserts as the main dividers.

Following World War One, and indeed through until the 1970s, the concept of nations as peoples (rather than as territories) remained dominant. Thus, while New Zealand became politically autonomous from Great Britain, New Zealanders continued to be British. (In my first passport, I was listed as a ‘New Zealand citizen’ and a ‘British subject’.) The practical extent of New Zealanders’ Britishness gradually diminished over the twentieth century; indeed when I sailed to the United Kingdom in 1974 – my ‘OE’ – my automatic right of permanent residence there depended on me having a British born grandparent. (I presume that would have included an Irish-born grandparent, given that Ireland was part of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1921.)

The main point is that Anglo-Celtic ethnicity, English language, and recent history of empire all contributed to my being a part of a British nation. I even got to vote, in 1975, in the first Brexit referendum (though it wasn’t framed as Brexit then.) And in April 1976, with my then partner and on my trusty Honda 175 motorbike, I embarked on an all-Ireland tour. In Belfast and especially Derry, I ventured into a Civil War zone; the hegemony of London in Derry was not the benign British hegemony I grew up with in Palmerston North. Yet, even the independent Republic of Ireland was in many ways still British; the pound sterling circulated as equivalent to the Irish punt, there was no passport requirement of entry, and it was only in County Donegal that I heard the Irish language spoken in a natural setting.

The change came mainly in the 1980s; nationalism can be fuelled by economic hard times, and modern ‘territorial’ nationalism reflects the growth of liberal identity politics in a decade in which fresh thinking about capitalism and economics just got too hard. Then in the early 1990s, the cold war ‘evil empire’ that was the Soviet Union collapsed into constituent territorial nation states, as did the satellite empire of Yugoslavia. Some said that this was the ‘end of history’; the world order by 2000 was made up of about 200 nation states defined, not by ethnicity, language, or culture, but by (often arbitrary) territorial boundaries.

The 2000s’ decade represented the pinnacle of ‘globalisation’, a word interpreted in a number of ways, but whose key theme was the subjection of nation states to an imperfectly competitive global marketplace, through a mixture of neoliberal ideology and internet-based technology. The remaining substantially incomplete part of the globalisation ‘project’ was to liberalise the flow of people.

In the 2010s’ decade, however – the post global-financial-crisis decade – this era of international ‘market cooperation’ came to an end; most clearly within the European Union, and more latterly with the reassertion of Chinese and Indian hegemony within their extended territories. Nevertheless, by regarding most people as ‘labour’, certain free international flows of people expanded in the 2010s.

Today, the western liberal view of a nation state is that it is a tightly-bordered territory in which all resident citizens are equal beneficiaries of that state (territorial insiders), and with seven broadly defined groups of other people having lesser rights with respect to that state. New Zealand in 2021 represents a particularly extreme version of a territorially fundamentalist state; where, on the inside, any ‘unkind’ expression of traditional identity differences is virtually outlawed, but where it is open season to be unkind towards defined outsiders by virtue of their status as outsiders. This 2020s’ extension of deglobalisation in New Zealand is the ‘immigration reset’, which is being implemented under the cover of the Covid19 pandemic.

The seven outsider groups are:

• People currently living in New Zealand, but without political rights and subject to temporary permissions (some undoubtedly already expired) with respect to their legal right to be in New Zealand, and to pursue an economic life while in New Zealand. They are denizens rather than citizens of New Zealand.
• People who have the legal status of citizens or permanent residents (‘New Zealand insiders’), but who are not currently inside New Zealand. (We may include ‘realm citizens’ in this group, such as Cook Island or Niuean citizens.)
• People not in the former categories, but who have a familial relationship with New Zealand insiders, or have current or prospective employers (or education providers) in New Zealand, or are Australian citizens.
• People not in the former categories but who are in a position to buy their way into some form of residential status.
• People not in the former categories but who are in a circumstance to plead their way, as refugees.
• People – especially younger men – in the RSE (recognised seasonal employment) countries: Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Kiribati. This is, formally, a labour relationship associated with New Zealand’s Pacific hegemony. Of these, Samoa has a further relationship with New Zealand; unlike the others, it was member of the ‘New Zealand empire’ in the mid-twentieth century. New Zealand continues to have a closer hegemonic relationship with Samoa than with the other RSE countries. Tonga is of particular significance, because most of the victims of the ‘dawn raids’ of 1975 and 1976 were Tongan citizens who had overstayed their temporary work permits.
• Everybody else in the world, including people from places such as Great Britain, South Africa and India who previously had favourable access to New Zealand through their empire links.

Thus, discrimination at present is based almost entirely on a person’s current location and their immigration status. That is the meaning of ‘territorial fundamentalism’; a nation state becomes simply an enforced piece of real estate, defined by its borders rather than by its people. That and nothing more.

We may note that Jacinda Ardern’s ‘Dawn Raids’ apology (1 August 2021) was carefully worded to emphasise the “discriminatory” nature of those raids (which mostly affected Tongan overstayers, people who had worked in New Zealand on RSE-like contracts), not their brutality. Essentially – and from today’s standpoint of territorial fundamentalism – that apology was for the failure to deport enough people whose passports were not of Pacific Island countries. We should have deported more Canadians, for example.

As noted (by the various bullet points above), New Zealand’s territorial fundamentalism has some exceptions, or at least gradations. One of these involves money; there is a suggestion that semi-billionaires will have privileged future access to New Zealand (although, within this group, the non-discrimination principle may be tested; will a Chinese semi-billionaire face more difficulties than an American semi-billionaire?). Another discrimination is that most citizens of most counties in close proximity to New Zealand will have less unfavourable future access to New Zealand than someone from, say, the United Kingdom; the most obvious example being Australian citizens.

Australia and United Kingdom

Australia and the United Kingdom are, like New Zealand, leaders in territorial fundamentalism, although I sense that both are more discriminatory than New Zealand on matters other than a person’s current location or immigration status. There is a sense that Māori in Australia are more likely to run foul of their ‘good character’ laws than are pakeha New Zealanders in Australia. Another difference in Australia is that most New Zealanders there form a whole category of denizens, essentially tenured guest workers.

For a few years now, especially after the 2015 refugee crisis (mainly characterised by boat-people – ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’ – coming out of Turkey, headed for the European Union; also a year of accelerated boat-people arrivals from Africa), BBC-type television dramas have highlighted the cruel interactions between vulnerable people and government bureaucracies. (Examples of such dramas are Collateral, and the black comedy Years and Years; we also see patterns in which most TV lead-detectives seem to be women, and in which Britain is an overtly multiracial society to the extent that even ‘white’ historical figures are depicted by ‘black’ actors.) Being British is now solely about the legal right to occupy British real estate; a right that is getting ever more difficult to secure. Anyone presently in Britain who does not have a legal right to be there is vulnerable to deportation, preceded by police raids at dawn, dusk or any other time of any day. While I am not clear about the current status of Irish citizens living in the United Kingdom, I suspect that it is not unlike that of New Zealanders in Australia.

China and India

These are hegemonic powers with a very strong sense of what constitutes their own territory, with the only blurs being their borders with each other (either side of Nepal and Bhutan). India has recently asserted its sovereignty over Kashmir, and China over Hong Kong.

The rise of territorial fundamentalism in the west has enabled China to accentuate its own form of territorial fundamentalism, with the once blurred boundaries in China’s far west now being claimed as inextricably Chinese territory, and fully subject to the imposition of Han Chinese culture and bureaucracy.

Hegemonic boundaries

Modern hegemonies are territorial nation states with significant fringes-of-influence. China’s inclination is to absorb those fringes into its formal territory, when they become troublesome. In addition to its Indian borderlands, those remaining fringes include Hong Kong, Macau, Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia, Taiwan, North Korea, and islands in the South China Sea. And, one small step removed from these, is South Korea.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes before Hong Kong and Macau switch to driving on the right-hand side of the road; that will be a practical symbol of their full incorporation into China.

American hegemony was – in the Cold War period – the entire cultural west. Thus, the Chilean coup of 1973 was largely instigated in Washington, as was the bloodless Australian coup of 1975. New Zealand largely wriggled out of that hegemony in the 1980s, and now constitutes an independent hegemon (albeit a minor hegemon) in the southwest Pacific. While the United States of America does have a formal realm (including Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Marianas Islands – and noting that Hawaii was incorporated into its core territory much as Tibet was in China), its main ongoing hegemonic interest is informal and in the western Pacific (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines). Also, Israel.

In the 1990s, Berlin effectively freed itself from American hegemony, and extended a process of asserting hegemony over the rest of the European Peninsula. Thus, in the 1990s, Eastern Europe largely – and in accordance with its history – once again flipped between Russian and Prussian influence. Further, as the European Union became increasingly a Prussian hegemony, the United Kingdom – especially England – wanted out.

The United Kingdom

London remains a particularly interesting, and enigmatic territorial hegemon. The United Kingdom is itself a formal hegemony ruled from England. The United Kingdom has three further layers, all formally constituted. The first layer includes the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, both tax havens. (Indeed all aggregated financial data for the United Kingdom is severely compromised, mostly because of these Switzerlands of the Irish Sea and the ‘English’ Channel.) The next layer is Britain’s realm, which includes a number of Caribbean tax havens and mid-Atlantic islands, as well as Gibraltar and Pitcairn. The final layer is the Commonwealth, although this expanding club (which now includes Mozambique and Rwanda) is largely a symbolic community of nations, and no longer reflects any realpolitik.

While there has been much recent focus on the status of Scotland, and of the impracticalities of a hegemonic boundary through Irish farmland, the really interesting case here may well be the Republic of Ireland, caught between – though geographically to the west of – two rival hegemons: London and Berlin. Dublin was similarly caught, as an uneasy neutral, during World War Two.

The twentieth century in Irish history represented a struggle for the political independence of the Irish people (an ethnicity which did not include the Scottish ethnics in the north), and was for a while resolved by Dublin and London both being subject to the hegemony of a union (EU) whose real political centre had become Berlin. The present arrangement – with a ‘forward border’ in the Irish Sea is unsustainable.

Further, I’m not really clear that the people of Scotland will openly favour a switch to Berlin instead of London as its political bedmate. A geopolitical land border along the River Tweed could be even more problematic than one in Ireland.

What I can see is – in a few decades time – Ireland rejoining the United Kingdom, albeit on different terms to those of the 1801 to 1921 period. We have seen in covid times that Scotland is already substantially independent from England. What needs to happen is for Westminster to become a solely English parliament, and for somewhere like Peterborough or Swindon to become a kind of federal capital city, accommodating a British Council that coordinates fiscal and foreign policy throughout a British realm that would naturally include both parts of Ireland.

Russia and China

Within Russia there is a strong sense of ‘Greater Russia’ which incorporates, in particular, Slavic and Tatar ethnic territories. While there has never been a sense that Russia has sought world dominance – there was once a sense that a Marxist worldview (a view formerly associated with Russia) did seek such dominance. Likewise, an American interpretation of consumerist liberal democracy also reached out to the entire world, and that kind of cultural hegemony was often associated with the United States as a powerful territorial nation state. Neither view really holds today. (Nor does anyone seriously think that Han Chinese culture or Islamic culture will ever prevail much beyond their present hegemonic boundaries.)

Nevertheless, Russia’s strong hegemonic attachment to a Greater Russia (and China’s to a greater China) will continue to create geopolitical tension. Indeed, there is a sense of foreboding at present that George Orwell’s book 1984 is becoming an uncannily accurate projection of our human future this century. In that book, the world was a surveillance society of manipulated truth, and politically dominated by three hegemonic ’empires’: Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia. In Orwell’s story, Oceania would flip between cynical alliances with Eurasia or East Asia. (In the 2020s, we may see ‘Eurasia’ forging such an alliance with ‘East Asia’.)

We can expect that, as in the past, Moscow will resist any attempts for nations under its influence on its western fringe (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova) to further distance themselves. And Moscow can be expected to be welcoming towards any Eastern European nations presently within the European Union who show signs of distancing themselves from Berlin (especially Poland and Hungary), and to develop political institutions more in line with the present Moscow model.

And we can expect the far east Asian nations (especially South Korea) to develop through the tension of being on a major hegemonic boundary.

Southeast Asia and Indo-Pacific

One key area to watch will be Southeast Asia. Already the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ is becoming the new geopolitical buzz phrase. Southeast Asia (even including Philippines with its entrenched post-colonial links with the United States) is a mix of independent and contested territory; by the latter I mean that it is contested for influence by different religions as well as diverse regional and post-colonial polities.

Hopefully, Southeast Asia – as a region – can remain relatively free of those hegemonic influences, and can flourish as a kind of ASEAN commonwealth; and keeps itself free from the territorial fundamentalism, where borders and visas – and only borders and visas – matter.

Summary

The system of territorial nation states has evolved, since the Post-WW1 Treaty of Versailles in 1919, towards its textbook optimum; a world of many independent territorial states, indeed a change from the recent globalised world of interdependent administrative states. The human world will always remain a mix of big states and small states; there is no prospect of the breakup of China, India, USA, Russia or any of the other G20 territories. (Though if my speculation re the United Kingdom comes about, I think it would have to become a British Union in which England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland etc. are recognised as separate countries, as they are indeed by FIFA.) And there’s no obvious prospect of any of today’s small nation states merging into any union beyond the scope of the present European Union.

Covid-facilitated (and GFC-facilitated) ‘Territorial Fundamentalism’ is an excessive backlash from the globalisation epoch of the 1990s and 2000s. After-all, humanity is a dispersed though connected fraternity of nearly eight billion people. Border-controls of the types that are emerging are fundamentally cruel; and cruelty towards any of us is ultimately cruelty to all of us.

Despite our present zenith of territorial independence, many nations are significantly influenced by regional hegemons; a few countries find themselves caught between two regional hegemons. New Zealand is one of those hegemons, in the south Pacific; albeit a minor hegemon. Indeed countries like Tonga are not only pulled towards New Zealand.

The wider solution to the problems of humanity is to develop a concept of global human rights – for example, through a public equity framework – while acknowledging a wide plurality of social and territorial identities. While movement across the global human landscape should be as politically free as can be practically managed, the economic, political and climatic incentives that persuade people to seek refuge from certain places need to be addressed and understood. Regional hegemons can choose to play benign rather than malign leadership roles in this process. And human rights principles should prevail over administrative rules. We need an order based on principles rather rules.

————-

Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

contact: keith at rankin.nz

This poignant photo by Max Vosailagi captures Fiji’s fixation with rugby sevens, with winning a second Olympic Gold last night by beating New Zealand 27-12 in the men’s final.

Two young boys, glued to what is apparently a TV screen through a neighbourhood front door during the Tokyo Olympic qualifiers, oblivious to their surroundings.

Covid restrictions could have prevented the boys from getting closer to the action.

Some quick Fiji reflections:

• The sevens addiction starts young;
• It’s inescapable — during game time every house with a TV will be tuned in;
• If your house doesn’t have a TV, not a problem — the neighbour’s house probably has one;
• Sevens is escapism from the country’s myriad problems, from politics to poverty.
• It is more than escapism — it’s a career and income for players, not to mention the strongest uniting force in a country beset by ethnic tensions; and
• Every young Fijian dreams of donning the national white team jersey one day.

Due to Covid restrictions, some of us had to watch from afar.

For the love of Rugby #teamFiji ?? #Olympics #Rugby pic.twitter.com/hiKmrA0COE

— Max Vosailagi (@realVosailagi) July 28, 2021

Fiji is also playing in the women’s rugby sevens Olympic competition which begins today and ends with the gold medal match on Saturday.

Dr Shailendra Singh is senior lecturer and coordinator of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific. This comment is from Dr Singh’s social media posts and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji has dedicated its Olympic rugby sevens win to the people back home who are struggling amidst the country’s covid-19 health crisis.

Fiji defeated New Zealand 27-12 in the men’s sevens final in Tokyo to defend the title they won in Rio five years ago.

Captain Jerry Tuwai said the win is very special for the team and all of Fiji.

“Everything that’s been going on in Fiji and all the expectation – as the coach and myself know is that all Fijians want only the win,” he said.

“So I think winning this gold medal will be a very very good day for Fiji today.”

Tuwai was also a part of Fiji’s gold medal winning team in 2016 but said this win holds extra meaning.

“I think it’s more special because we’ve been away from our family for about five to six months so I think this one is special.”

Only the athletes receive Olympic medals and Fiji coach Gareth Baber revealed his captain actually tried to give him his newest prize.

“Jerry was trying to give me his medal,” Baber laughed.

“I said ‘I’m not going to be taking that off you’ and he said, ‘no, no I won one, you have this one’…because that’s the man that he is. He would never take the credit for what he has done and he has achieved.

“It’s a phenomenal feat to have done what he’s done.”

??Congrats to our only DUAL ?gold medalist.
The captain JERRY TUWAI #HowWeSevens #TokyoOlympics #TosoViti #Olympics #rugby pic.twitter.com/tCRYqEmf4G

— Fiji Rugby Union (@fijirugby) July 28, 2021

Baber said it had been a difficult year for the Fiji team and the country.

“We were locked down in Fiji, then we went to Australia where we were quarantined for a period of time and I’ve got to pay a special mention to the players and staff who have done this,” he said.

“They came into a training camp on Easter Monday thinking they were going back on on Friday. On the Tuesday they were told they couldn’t go back and they haven’t seen their family since.

“I think what you saw out there over the last three days has been the resilience of the group dealing with whatever’s been thrown our way.”

?Congratulations?

OUR ?CHAMPIONS??? #HowWeSevens #TokyoOlympics #rugby #Olympics #TosoViti pic.twitter.com/m3GSN5pLYk

— Fiji Rugby Union (@fijirugby) July 28, 2021

Baber also paid tribute to the impact of newcomers Jiuta Wainiqolo, Sireli Maqala and Iosefo Masi, who only made their international debuts last month.

“This is their first international tournament they’ve ever played in, apart from an Oceania tournament we played some three weeks back in Townsville,” he said.

“To think that we’ve done that behind the closed doors of Fiji and it pays testament really to the quality of rugby that is played in Fiji, particulary the quality of sevens rugby… that’s where the expectation comes from, because we know we’ve got super talent in Fiji.”

They’ve done it again!

A big congratulations to the #FIJ team on their second #gold in a row in the men’s #rugby sevens! ?#StrongerTogether | #Tokyo2020 | @WorldRugby | @fijirugby pic.twitter.com/t6HA8eIvEn

— Olympics (@Olympics) July 28, 2021

Fiji Rugby chief executive John O’Connor said they were extremely proud of the players, who have sacrificed a lot on their Olympic journey.

“The boys have been together for the last several months from April, away from their families, and there is so much commitment they have given to this journey,” he said.

“That made us confident and I know all of them proudly represented their families and the struggles of Covid-19 that we’re going through and they were playing for their families and for Fiji.”

Fiji recorded 1057 new cases of covid-19 in the 24 hours to 8am Wednesday.

There are now more than 19,168 active cases in isolation, with 218 deaths – 216 of them from this latest outbreak that began in April.

The Fiji team had to separate from their families when the outbreak began and O’Connor said the plight of everyone back home had motivated the team in Tokyo.

“We had to get special permission for them to train in a bubble and I think they all understand the struggles that every Fijian is going through,” he said.

“In their message this afternoon they said they were going to play for all the families who have lost loved ones and all the people who are going through covid-19 – all the frontliners and every Fijian who has been through challenges during this time.”

With covid-19 restrictions in force, Fijians were unable to gather together to watch the gold medal match but it didn’t stop the locals from celebrating.

O’Connor watched the game at home in Suva and said he could hear drums and fireworks throughout the capital after the full-time whistle.

Five years ago thousands of fans lined the streets to welcome the Fiji team home from Rio, but O’Connor said things would have to be different this time around.

“I think the players understand that it’s tough times,” he said.

“We will see them come home and in the meantine we will have discussions with all the stakeholders and see how we can celebrate their victory.”

The Fiji squad departs Tokyo on Thursday and will arrive home on Friday morning, before spending 14 days in quarantine.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz