By CHARLIE DUMAVI
Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee (PNGOC) general secretary has urged national sports federations to treat their national championships the same way they threat Oceania championships or any other big games. Secretary Auvita Rapilla said athletes fail to perform because the leaders fail to do their job and therefore all local championship must be treated with the same level of competition in order for PNG to win gold in regional and global competitions.“Treat your national championships, including Oceania championships or the Pacific Games — treat them at same level,” she said.
“Your technical officials, your judges, referees and empires must be at the same level as the Pacific Games. “We need to do that right through all our competition from junior competitions, club competitions, and association competitions right through to the championships.”
Railla said this during the PNG Sports Foundation (PNGSF) workshop on building world-class sports leadership strategy held recently at the Taurama Indoor Aquatic Centre.The workshop was aimed at finding out ways local sports federations can work with PNGSF to raise the standard of sports in the country.
The much-talked about ‘Go Rural to Go Global’ strategy was discussed to encourage federations to strengthen their sporting programmes, including women, children and people living with disability in the rural PNG to realise their talent in a sport.Rapilla said athletes who do not perform to their best in any sport is the reflection of the leadership in all aspect in that particular sport.
“If we want sport to excel and achieve success, it is going to take us leaders to be competent at all levels of sport including coaching and technical officials,” she said.“
If we administrators fail our athletes will also fail.”Sports Minister Don Pomb Polye said sports leadership is the action of guiding layers to perform their best, regardless of the type of sport they play and federations must work in partnership with PNGFA to progress.
