PNG leads after six days of competition

 PAPUA New Guinea sits on top of the Pacific Games medal tally with 21 gold medals, nine silver and eight bronze for a total of 38 medals at the end of six days of competition.

The Pacific Games website, which was not updated at 9pm last night, has the host nation on top with 16 gold, seven silver and bronze for a total of 30 medals.

Weightlifting, which ended its competition yesterday, saw PNG finish with 13 gold medals, five silver and three bronze. Thelma Toua out-shone her more illustrious teammates including sister Dika Toua to clean sweep the 48kg women’s division with three gold medals. In swimming Ryan Pini’s has claimed three gold medals from the 50m backstroke, the 100m butterfly and the 100m freestyle events at the Taurama Aquatic Centre.

Samuel Segher’s silver in the 100m butterfly and Tegan McCarthy’s silver in the women’s 200m breaststroke were the other notable performances by the swim team.

Shooting returned two gold medals both to Tania Mairi, who claimed gold in the 10m Air Pistol and the 25m Standard Pistol events at the June Valley range.

The women’s va’a team has put the country on the map with its breakthrough gold medal win in the V12 event as well as a silver medal in the V6 sprint. The men’s and women’s open touch side won gold medals in their competitions.

Medal events for today: Tennis (female/male team finals); Powerlifting (women 47kg-72kg, men 59kg-83kg); Squash (male team finals); Swimming (finals – 50m butterfly male, 100m breaststroke female, 200m breaststroke male, 50m butterfly female, 200m individual medley male, 800m freestyle female, 4x50m freestyle relay mix final).