Wisil urges acclaim

 By ELIAS LARI

SELAH Wisil, mother of Papua New Guinea star female sprinter and Pacific Games multiple gold medallist Toea Wisil, has called on the Government to support and appreciate her daughter’s effort for the people and the country.

Wisil, from Kangambil Village in Banz, Jiwaka, said Toea’s contribution to sport was something that needed to be properly recognised, along with other elite athletes in the country.

Wisil said Toea, 27, had been  the dominant name in PNG athletics over the last eight year, though her son Kupun was a bronze medallist as well.

Wisil claimed her daughter e had been struggling to make a name for PNG using her own resources to represent the country.

Toea is the third of six children and is one of the country’s great success stories in PNG sport after rising from obscurity at the 2003 Grassroots Olympics (now called the PNG Games).

“This is not for Toea alone but for other gold medallists like Ryan Pini, Dika Toua and Steven Kari, who have been great representatives of PNG,” she said.

Wisil said Jiwaka parliamentarians needed to make an attempt to support Toea because through her achievement, she has done the province proud.

She said the only MP — apart from Sports Minister Justin Tkatchenko, who bothered to congratulate the champion (Toea), who won gold medals in the Pacific Games’ 100m, 200m, 400m and 4x100m was Goroka’s Bire Kimisopa. 

“The little appreciation you show will help her to feel appreciated and she will continue to maintain the country’s standard,” Wisil said.

She said sport was becoming an area which the state was focusing on in a big way to change the lives of people.

“I want my daughter and other athletes around the country to be recognised.”

Jiwaka leader William Wii backed Wisil’s call.

Wii said athletes played a role not just in representing the country and bringing pride and honour to PNG but were appropriate role models for the youth and children.