The Pacific Games Committee has expressed confidence in the Methodist Church meeting the accommodation needs of the 2019 Pacific Games despite concerns.  

The Methodist Church Faleula Compound will become the Games Village as it will host the Pacific Games in July.

The Games operations manager, James Smith, has confirmed that a survey of the church preparations was looking good.

“It’s looking very good and we’re so grateful towards the Church for agreeing to host the Games in July and it won’t be any big challenge for the delegations,” he said.

It’s expected that the Church will be accommodating 3,000 to 3,500 athletes and team officials on the ground all at one time, and to be able to put them all in one place and have an actual village field to it.

“At previous games, the athletes stay in schools or in dormitory style housing but with this, you get an actual house to yourself. It’s a really cool and unique opportunity.

“The preparations by the Church are going really well and we’re really excited about the opportunity to use the Methodist Church at Faleula for the athlete village as Samoa is expecting a lot of people,” he added.

The church is upgrading a lot of the buildings as they’re building two brand new halls.

Meanwhile, Mr. Smith said the Committee is still working with participating countries to determine the final numbers.

“For instance, shooting is in the second week, so those athletes who come for shooting won’t come until one or two days before their competition starts,” he said.

The committee is in the process of talking to each delegation and they are determining how many athletes they’re going to bring and in what disciplines. Twelve of the countries are currently in Samoa and are being taken on a tour of all the venues. 

Mr. Smith also said that Pesega has been categorized a training venue.

“So we have training venues identified for a lot of the additional sports and we’ll just provide some training venues for other sports to practice if it clashes.”