Sportz Crazy Nauru?
With the Olympics due to commence next week, Nauru has named its team to Beijing 2008. Nauru’s sole Olympic athlete is a weightlifter, Itte Detenamo, who will compete in the 105+ kg category (the heaviest weight division). A report of the story is here. And here’s the website of the Nauru Olympic Committee. Watch the Oceania in Beijing website to see how he goes, along with other athletes from Pacific countries.
Nauru’s President, Marcus Stephen, is an Olympian (Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000) and a former weightlifting champion, having won Commonwealth Games gold medals at three different Games. However, the President reportedly won’t be attending Beijing due to Nauru’s diplomatic relationship with Taiwan.
But perhaps more important to Nauru than the Beijing Olympics is the forthcoming International Cup, commencing at the end of August. Of course, this is Australian Rules Football.
The Nauruan team, the Nauru Chiefs, is already in Stawell, a town in western Victoria, preparing for the competition. Nauru is football crazy, and even had its domestic competition shut down due to the social unrest that bitter competition was causing. A close football relationship has developed between Stawell and Nauru, and the team is using the town as its base.
I’ve never been much of a football fan, despite having been brought up in Melbourne. So I’m not much qualified to offer expert opinion on the Nauru Chiefs’ chances in the competition. But there are some articles to have a look at (see links below), which seem to think that Nauru has a good chance of a strong result in 2008.
- World Footy News on Nauru Chiefs at Stawell
- The Stawell Times-News article on Nauru Chiefs
- AFL website preview of the Nauru Chiefs
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