Polynesian sports

We have fields, where football was born, and hills, where we learned to ride a bike in the summer and to ski in the winter. Our big playgrounds have nets and basketball hoops while our big frozen lakes are also used as ice rinks. Everybody helps himself with whatever happens to have at hand. In French Polynesia, they don’t have vast meadows, snow and ice. They only have tropical beaches. So let’s see what kind of competitions can be born in the shadow of palm trees.   

 

1. Climbing on palm trees

 

Pretty straightforward. The winner is the competitor who climbs to the highest point or reaches the top of the tree in the shortest time. Polynesians are very good at this as they often climb trees for work: they climb in plantations to collect copra for coconut oil, but also in tourist resorts: it’s important to get rid  all of the coconuts from the palm trees before they fall on a very unlucky tourist. 

 

 

2. Copra or Harvesting coconuts

 

This discipline involves two different competitions. In the easier version the competitors get a sharp wooden stick on which they have to open a coconut by repeatedly hitting it. The longer version of this involves two different tools: first the competitors use an axe to cut a coconut in half and then they remove the edible part of the coconut with a special round knife. The first who can harvest all the copra in his jute bag is the winner. 

 

3. Throwing javelins into a coconut

 

A tropical version of javelin. A coconut is placed on a 20m high pole and the competing groups have to stick as many spears as possible into it in a certain amount of time. 

 

4. Pirogues

 

At the end I want to mention another discipline, which for a change doesn’t involve coconuts. Rowing is the most popular sport on this side of the world and the only discipline practiced by the locals regularly. Every evening, when the temperature drops and the sun gets low, numerous colored pirogues start to gather in the water. There is nothing more beautiful than sitting in the cockpit with a glass of wine in hand, watching this little boats row by, fast as lightning, in complete silence.