28 Jul 2012

Sport: Short sleep for some Pacific athletes at Olympics

3:23 am on 28 July 2012

The Olympic Games will be officially opened at a glitzy ceremony in East London this morning.

Among the flag-bearers representing the 204 competing nations will be American Samoa's Ching Maou Wei, as Vinnie Wylie reports.

"Wei will compete in the 50m freestyle in London and American Samoa's Chef de Mission, Kent Yamada says he was a standout choice to the flag bearer."

He's one of our experienced athletes and he seems to catch the eye of a lot of the people here in the UK and he's a good spokesperson for the team, he seems to connect well with a lot of people.

Another swimmer, Amini Fonua, will carry the flag for the Tongan team about 12 hours before his debut appearance in the pool.

The Oceania Championship gold medallist says it's a huge honour.

Everything that I do right now is for Tongan swimming and to be able to share this moment with all the support system and all the people that are promoting the sport, it's just a huge accomplishment and I share it with all of them.

Fonua won't be the only Pacific athlete at risk of a short night's sleep.

Solomon Islands judoka Tony Lamo and Vanuatu table tennis pair Anolyn Lulu and Yoshua Shing will also be headed for all in action early on Saturday morning.