Fiji’s national taekwondo squad is midway through a nine-day World Taekwondo Olympic Solidarity Camp in Sydney, using the international gathering to sharpen skills and gain competition experience ahead of next year’s regional tournament. The camp, which organisers say brings together athletes from across Oceania, has been under way for five days and is scheduled to conclude next Thursday, March 26.
The Fiji contingent travelling to Australia comprises Aanvi Kumar, Aarush Kumar, Bhavish Nand, Immanuel Krishna and Vivaan Singh, all training under the guidance of national coach Neelu Chand. Team members have been working alongside counterparts from other Pacific Island nations and Oceania delegations, an arrangement organisers say is intended to expose small federations to higher-level sparring partners and coaching methods.
This World Taekwondo Olympic Solidarity initiative is part of a broader push to ready Pacific athletes for the 2026 Oceania Taekwondo Games. The nine-day camp in Sydney brings together technical, tactical and competition-oriented work in a concentrated programme designed to lift standards across the region and help national squads fine-tune their preparations ahead of selection and competition next year.
For Fiji, the camp represents a rare opportunity for sustained, high-quality training away from home. Working in an international environment gives the squad access to varied sparring styles and the chance to benchmark their progress against athletes from neighbouring nations — an important step for smaller federations that often lack regular international exposure.
Coach Neelu Chand leads a relatively young national group, and the federation has emphasised the importance of such overseas camps in developing depth and readiness for regional events. The Olympic Solidarity programme, run by World Taekwondo, has increasingly become a vehicle for capacity building in Pacific nations by funding camps, coaching courses and development activities that would otherwise be difficult for resource-limited federations to sustain.
With the camp wrapping up next Thursday, the athletes are expected to return to Fiji to continue their training phases and finalise preparations for the Oceania Games cycle. The experience in Sydney — measured in days of intensive work and new match-ups — is the latest development in Fiji’s build-up across multiple sports to regional competitions in 2026.
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