PNG's Sprinting Superstar Toea Wisil prepares for Pacific Games

Sprinting superstar Toea Wisil has stepped up to the mark in preparation for July’s Pacific Games, boosting her training regime after a friendly chat during a joint training session with former Australian rugby league player Scott Prince in recent weeks.
The pair trained on the Gold Coast at Toea’s home base - the Griffith University athletics track - where Toea was given valuable advice by the sporting legend. Scott and Toea first met as part of their ambassadorship for last November’s 6th PNG Games have remained friends ever since.
This is just a minor component of Toea’s overall training schedule, which sees her undergo a mixture of sprints, longer distance repetitions, swimming and gym work for up to six hours a day, six days a week.
Her dedication and commitment to her sport has seen Toea become one of the most recognisable athletes in the Pacific region, proving that no matter your circumstances, through hard work and dedication you can achieve greatness.
Some of her notable accomplishments on the track is five Gold Medals won at the 2011 Pacific Games in New Caledonia, winning the 100m, 200m, 400m, 4 x 100m relay and 4 x 400m relay.
In April 2013 Wisil became the first ever Papua New Guinean to hold an Australian national track title when she claimed the 100 metres in Sydney. In 2010 she missed out on PNG’s first ever track and field medal at the Commonwealth Games by just 0.04 of a second, in finishing 4th in the 100m.
Earlier this month Toea placed second at the 93rd Australian Athletics Championships in Brisbane in the Women’s 100metre event, with a personal best time of 11.40 seconds. She has done all of this in a time of immense struggle following the sudden death of her father last October and brother in March.
Toea will continue to concentrate on her base conditioning work for the next several weeks to prepare for her main competition of the year, the highly anticipated 2015 Pacific Games in Port Moresby. Even though she is in this hard conditioning phase of training, Toea competed in front of a home PNG crowd in Lae over the weekend, starting with the 400m Heats on Friday evening the 17th April.
Wisil has her eyes set on multiple gold medals at the Pacific Games as well as new national records in the 100metre and 200metre events. She will also contest the 4x100metre and the 4x400metre relays.