Olympics spur memories from South Pacific Games

After two weeks of compulsive TV viewing of the Rio Olympics, my brain went soft, jogging a distant memory of my own Olympic experience. Well, sort of.

Thirty-three years ago I was a player-coach on the Guam women’s volleyball team that participated in the seventh South Pacific Games in Apia, Western Samoa (now just Samoa). The event, also held every four years, was the Olympics for all the tiny island nations — Tokelau, Niue, Wallis and Futuna, Nauru, among them — that didn’t have a shot at making the big show.

More than 2,500 athletes from 19 island entities vied for medals in 14 sports over two weeks in September 1983. The parade of nations at the opening ceremony was just as colorful as you’d expect from a gathering of Pacific islanders. The Guam contingent was the exception, trudging around the new stadium track in militaristic navy-blue and white leisure suits, reflective of the territory’s history as a U.S. defense outpost and its eccentric governor’s favored attire.

The games featured familiar Olympic sports such as athletics (track and field), boxing, basketball, table tennis and weightlifting, and was ahead of the curve in holding golf, tennis and rugby competitions. There were also British-influenced curiosities, like bowls.

Surprisingly, considering the context, there was no swimming, due to the lack of a pool.

Most curious to this American female athlete was netball, a sport akin to basketball but played in pleated skirts or culottes. Netball was developed in England in the 1890s as a socially appropriate pursuit for women. Players are assigned positions whose movements are restricted to certain areas of the court, rules no doubt intended to prevent unladylike exertions. Dribbling is also discouraged, as players are allowed to hold the ball for only three seconds before passing or shooting.

As for my volleyball team, we upset one of the favorites, New Caledonia, in pool play to advance to the medal round, a first for Guam in women’s volleyball. We were thrashed by French Polynesia in the semifinals and lost the bronze to American Samoa, which employed a couple of ringers from Hawaii. (Not calling them “cowards” or anything, just sayin’.)

The cultural and ethnic diversity at the games was as expansive as the Pacific itself. In accordance with the Olympic ideals of friendship and understanding, I tried mingling with the Tahitians, who were somewhat aloof but never without music.

Other memories: Apia’s lively open-air market; unlimited servings of Peters ice cream from Australia at the athletes’ dining room set up under a large tent; and Samoan-brewed Vailima beer, especially when enjoyed at Aggie Grey’s, a venerable hotel whose founder and namesake is widely believed to have inspired the Bloody Mary character in James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific.”

The South Pacific Games continue as the Pacific Games, last held in 2015 in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, with 24 participating nations. The number of sports has doubled since 1983, now including beach volleyball, cricket, softball, outrigger canoe padding and, yes, swimming.

And if you watched the parade of nations at Rio, you might have noticed that Guam, American Samoa, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and several other participants in the South Pacific Games made it to the big show — even if their brightest star was the oiled-up, bare-chested flag bearer from Tonga.

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@staradvertiser.com.