Richard Jones

The 1975 South Pacific Games were held in and around Agana, the capital city of Guam in the American-controlled island chain of Micronesia. A last gasp gold medal from the women’s softball team took PNG’s gold medal tally to 22 but the top two nations were New Caledonia and Tahiti with totals of 102 and 94 medals, respectively.

Top individual performers for PNG were distance runner John Kokinai, who garnered three gold medals and a silver, and swimmer Charlie Martin, who finished with no fewer than eight medals. In boxing, Western Samoa and American Samoa took home the lion’s share of the 11 gold medals on offer, but PNG boxers did well with two gold and two silver.

Edward Seeto (flyweight), Sibona Oka (featherweight) and Geoffrey Hui (lightweight) won gold medals for Papua New Guinea in the weightlifting. The golf also proved to be a bonanza for the PNG team. Dick Smith – not to be confused with the retail electronics wizard - won the individual archery gold for PNG. The PNG men’s doubles combination won gold in the tennis, a competition which was hard hit because of wet weather.

Edited extract of a fuller account of the 1975 Guam Games, which can be found in the December edition of the PNG Association of Australia’s ‘Una Voce’ magazine.

Photo: Dick and I enjoy the sunshine as 'Lady Brisbane' approaches the Story Bridge in the fair capital of the Sunshine State.