Coup in Fiji Leaves Team Stranded

Being an Olympic athlete from Fiji is challenging enough in the best of times. Now, the remote island nation is shaken by a coup and hostage crisis.

And Tony Philp, a 30-year-old windsurfer, is left wondering about his country half a world away.

Philp has represented Fiji at four Olympics. He’s already qualified for the Sydney Games. He dreams of winning his country’s first medal in his final Olympics.

But the upheaval at home has left Philp stranded in Europe without equipment or a plane ticket to Australia.

Philp was competing in the European Championships in Cadiz, Spain, when armed rebels stormed the parliamentary compound in Suva, the capital of Fiji, on May 19 and took the prime minister and 30 other people hostage.

The standoff has shattered Fiji’s idyllic image as a haven of tropical serenity.

“It was really a shock,” Philp said. “Fiji is supposed to be a paradise. The people are supposed to be the friendliest people in the world. It’s horrible what’s going on. It really breaks my heart to see this.”

The South Pacific island, with a population of 800,000 and located about 1,100 miles north of New Zealand and 2,800 miles southwest of Hawaii, experienced two coups in 1987.

“I was in Fiji in March, and everything was perfect,” Philp said. “It makes it all the more strange. From what I can gather this is much worse than in ’87. It looks like it’s going to drag on.”

Philp, who monitors the crisis on TV and in newspapers, said his family is safe. But the insurrection has thrown his Olympic preparations into turmoil.

Following the competition in Spain, he had planned to buy new equipment in Germany and set up training camp in Marseille, France. Then he would go to California for a month in July, and arrive in Sydney in August to get ready for the Sept. 15-Oct. 1 games.

“The coup has put a hold on everything,” Philp said in a telephone interview from France. “I can’t get my equipment. I have no equipment at this moment. I’ve had to cancel my training camp. I don’t even have a ticket to go back to Sydney. I’m stuck.”

Philp gets some funding through Olympic Solidarity, an International Olympic Committee program which provides scholarships to needy athletes. But that money isn’t enough to cover all his travel, training and equipment costs.

The funding that Philp receives from the government and sports federations in Fiji has dried up since the coup.

“I was relying on the govermment for a lot of funding,” he said. “I think I’m the least of their problems right now. Between now and the Olympics, I don’t expect anything from the government. There is no government.”

For now, Philp has decided to stay at his French girlfriend’s house in Rennes, keep in touch with events in Fiji and try to find the money for airfare to Sydney.