Serenia Ragatu (57.25s, 2nd), Fane Sauvakacolo (1min 00.19s, 2nd) and Vilorina Tuilawaki (5mins 00.32s, 2nd) were the definite dark horses for team Fiji today as they each won a silver medal each in the under 18 girl’s 400m, open women’s 400m and open women’s 1500m finals respectively. Also winning a silver medal was team captain Errol Qaqa in the final of the Men’s 110m hurdles in a time of 15.44s behind PNG’s Mowen Boino (15.25s) into a hurricane of a wind (-4.3m/s).
Also on the men’s side, Meli Senokonoko (54.76s, 8th) and Marika Cabenagauna (4mins 48.79s, 6th) competed today in the Open Men’s 400m and 1500m finals respectively as well as gaining valuable experience and having a taste for regional competitions.
The 5th silver medal of the day came from the mixed sprint medley team that consisted of Heleina Young, Malasebe Tuvusa, Serenia Ragatu and Jim Colasau kept the Australian team honest in their effort to win gold. The Fiji quartet was led off by Heleina Young who managed to beat the Vanuatu runner ahead of her and did not let the Australian lead runner out of her sights as she passed the baton to Malasebe Tuvusa. Tuvusa did not let up as he closed the stagger on the Australian female runner and gave his team a lead going into the 3rd leg with Serenia Ragatu storming around the bend for the 200m leg. Ragatu shot off the turn ahead of the Australian runner as they both cut in to lane 1 for the final change. Jim Colasau had a comfortable 20m lead for the first 250m of his leg of the race but was over powered in the last 120m by the experience and maturity of the 4th Australian runner.