Piniau bids for Olympic spot

 COMPETITION for the place available in track and field for one male athlete in the Papua New Guinea team to Rio is heating up, with Theo Piniau, pictured, now putting himself in serious contention with a 21.39 second clocking for the 200m event last weekend in Canyon, Texas. 

Piniau, who won the bronze medal at the Pacific Games only nine one hundredths of a second behind Nelson Stone with a time of 21.37, has been training well since returning to the United States in September last year but had not yet reached his last year’s performance level until it all clicked for him on Saturday. 

With the perfect conditions of a following wind right on the legal limit for record purposes (2.0 metres per second) and a good field of athletes, Piniau gritted his teeth and ran through the pain of a badly bruised toe to record his second-best time for the distance and just edge his school teammate, Todd Handley, to win the race. 

Meanwhile, Mowen Boino maintained his recent consistent form in the 400m hurdles to win a close race with Piniau’s teammate Tobia Lahbi (Italy) in a time of 52.75 seconds. 

Boino is confident that he can match or even better the 51.51 seconds that he ran last year and if that were to happen, then either Piniau or Stone, would need to break the 21.09s national record in the 200m or run a sub-47 second 400m to better that.