Women sprinter Heleina Young will be out to redeem her athletics career at the Pacific Mini Games in Koror, Palau, which is from June 29-July 9.

This was the gist of coach Bola Tafoou’s interview with SUNsports yesterday.

“Watch Heleina go,” he said.

Tafoou said her return to athletics has not been easy after copping multiple injuries from playing rugby.

“I think this transition from rugby to athletics is working for her. She was doing well in rugby but injuries cut her career short. She had to think about her future where she made the decision to return to athletics.”

Tafoou said their preparations had started in January with eight weeks of general prep phase.

“We started with the 100 and 200 metres but we saw that she was much more closer to the winning times of the 200 and 400m. So we got to be smart about it,” he added.

That means Young won’t participate in the 100m at the Games but instead she will run in the 200m and 400m.

“She’s running faster than before. That is really impressive. Coming out of rugby, she has gotten really strong and this has contributed to improvement in her time.”

Being one of the older athletes going to the Games, Tafoou said, Young knows her responsibilities.

“She has to show the young athletes on how it’s done.

“Heleina is really showing leadership skills and that has also boosted her preparation.”

Tafoou said one of the challenges in preparing Young for the Games was that she could not run the bend.

“She couldn’t run the bend because of the anterior cruciate ligament injury (ACL) tear. Our workouts had to be done in the 100m but when she recovered it was gone from there,” he said.

Tafoou added the most challenging part of sending athletes to the Games was the paying of the levy.

“This should not happen again in my opinion; parents want their children to go. Athletics Fiji struggles to get sponsorships and I plea to the executive committee to secure sponsorships, the bigger one is coming and that is Tahiti (Pacific Games).”

He said to go to Tahiti, the levy athletes and officials pay are almost the same with Palau, which is $3000 per person.

Feedback: josua.buredua@fijisun.com.fj