Nawaka College will make its first appearance at the Coca-Cola Games Fiji Finals after a months-long build-up that coach Paul Racaca says marks a turning point for the recently established school.
Racaca, who has overseen the athletics push since the start of the school year, described 2024 as Nawaka College’s “year of establishment” as it expands beyond the classroom into extracurriculars. The programme began with school-wide time trials that involved about 80 students, from which 23 promising athletes were taken to the Nadi Zone competition. That group was trimmed after zone finals to a core six who will contest the national finals — an outcome Racaca called “already a victory” for a debutant school.
“The six students are excited. It’s their first time here, to experience the atmosphere, to run, jump and throw at this level,” Racaca said, stressing that the trip is as much about exposure and experience as it is about podium finishes. He highlighted the value of competing against established athletics programmes, saying the experience will give the young athletes important insight into elite secondary-school competition and help shape Nawaka’s long-term development pathway.
The milestone has been a community effort. Racaca acknowledged backing from the vanua of Nalagi, including Momo na Tui Nawaka, and the five villages in the Nawaka district, along with school administrators, families and other supporters who have rallied behind the team. That local support, he said, has been central to getting the programme off the ground and enabling students to travel and compete at zone and national events.
Nawaka College’s debut reflects a deliberate strategy to broaden student opportunities. Athletics was the school’s primary focus in Term One, Racaca said, but the broader aim is to build a sustainable extracurricular framework that can feed other activities and give students pathways beyond local competition. He described the initial crop of finalists as the foundation of a longer-term plan to develop young athletes and to raise the school’s profile on the national stage.
For now, the emphasis remains on learning and absorption of the Coca-Cola Games environment — one of the region’s premier school athletics events. For the six finalists, the week offers a chance to measure themselves, learn from more experienced competitors and bring that experience back to Nawaka’s squad to lift standards for the next intake.
Racaca said the school will continue to hold trials and build its programme so that future entries are larger and more competitive. As Nawaka College takes this step onto the national athletics stage, the coming months will test whether the community-backed initiative can translate this inaugural presence into sustained progress.