Fiji’s sprint king and reigning Pacific Games Blue Ribbon champ Banuve Tabakaucoro cruised through his first event, slower than his form in the Oceania Champs two weeks ago, but enough to win his 100m heats to qualify for today’s semifinals where he has been ranked third overall.
Tabakaucoro clocked the third-best time of 10.93 seconds behind Papua New Guinea Emanuel Anis and Samoa’s Johnny Key who finished in 10.86s and 10.90s respectively.
In the 2022 Oceania Champs a forthnight ago, Tabakaucoro clocked 10.56s.
Also through to 100m semi-finals are Lasarusa Senibale and Temo Lemeki who ran 11.21s and 11.31s respectively.
The semi-finals is scheduled for 6.30pm (Fiji Time). Prior to that, at 6 pm, is the 400m heats featuring Samuela Railoa.
In other athletics events held yesterday, Braelynn Yee ran a 13.19s in the heats of the women’s 100m that saw her qualify for the final where she ran a 13.09s to finish sixth overall. In the final of the men’s 10,000m Avikash Lal braved the scorching sun and high humid conditions and crossed the line in a time of 36:09.03s and a 5th place finish.
Meanwhile, Fiji picked up three more silver medals and three more bronze medals from weightlifting yesterday to amass a total of five silver and seven bronze medals, placed 12 overall.
Aluwesi Aditaroleva won three bronze medals in the women’s 59kg. She lifted 67kg in the snatch and 85kg in the clean and jerk of a total of 152kg. Patrick Veidreyaki picked up three silver medals in the men’s 81kg with a lift of 120kg in the Snatch and 152kg in the clean and jerk.
