Seven teams will compete in the Mixed Team badminton event at the Samoa 2019 Pacific Games event from Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 July.
Five months after the VICTOR Oceania Open Mixed Team Championships, where four out of these seven teams competed, the Pacific Islands unite for the prestigious quadrennial event. The teams have been allocated a seeded position and the schedule has been released.
| Seed position | Country |
| 1 | Tahiti |
| 2 | New Caledonia |
| 3 | Fiji |
| 4 | Samoa |
| 5 | Tonga |
| 6 | Kiribati |
| 7 | Northern Marianas |
The Mixed Team event will be played in a round robin format. Each tie includes five matches which includes one of each discipline: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
The first seeds, Tahiti, will open proceedings on Monday 8 July 2019 against Northern Marianas and will be looking to make up for their major upset at the VICTOR Oceania Mixed Team Championships in February 2019. The team entered the Mixed Team event as third seeds (behind Australia and New Zealand), but were stunned by New Caledonia in the deciding Men’s Doubles match.
New Caledonia caused another stunning blow as they ousted fourth seeds, Fiji, to finish in bronze medal position, leaving Tahiti in fourth place and Fiji in fifth.
The last time that the Mixed Team event took place in the Pacific Games was during the 2011 New Caledonia edition. The home team won Gold, along with four out of five of the individual competition Gold medals, while Fiji finished second and Tahiti in third in the Mixed Team event.
Over the last eight years, New Caledonia have won the bronze medal twice at the Oceania Mixed Team Championships (2014 and 2019), whereas Tahiti took the bronze medal in 2016.
Meanwhile, Kiribati and Northern Marianas will be taking part in their first Mixed Team badminton event at the Samoa 2019 Pacific Games.
The additional teams and competition in the Pacific amplifies the positive effects of increased BWF Shuttle Time activity. The initiative encourages children to pick up a racket and learn how to play badminton, which increases exposure to events such as the Oceania Development Camp, the Oceania Championships and Pacific Games.
In this year’s Games, Team Tahiti will be relying on the Men’s Singles runner-up from the VICTOR Oceania Open Individual Championships 2019, Rémi Rossi, as he travels from his playing career in France to compete with his home nation once again in Samoa.
“We were not so happy with the result in Melbourne… So this is motivation for us to change the result in Samoa where we want to take up our revenge”, says Rémi.
Like many other teams, Tahiti will be preparing for the event with an intense training programme.
Remi continued, “I arrive in Tahiti on Thursday 13 June where we will prepare ourselves…We will train twice a day, every day, with all the team and Leo Cucuel as the coach”
Meanwhile, Team Samoa will be looking to capitalise on their recent three-month training programme in China. The high-spirited team finished seventh in the VICTOR Oceania Open Mixed Team Championships, but are determined to get the better of their neighbouring countries in front of a home crowd.
“Our three months in China were great, we learned a lot and we hunger for more…As the games are near, goals set, practice on, ready to fight and when we fall, we won’t stop, we’ll get up and come back stronger“, says Lole Letelemaana-Ioane
Team Samoa will also start their campaign against Northern Marianas in the afternoon session on Monday 8 July 2019. The ties will be played in two or three sessions over three days:
| Monday 8 July 2019 | |||
| 9am | Tahiti | Vs | Northern Marianas |
| 9am | New Caledonia | Vs | Kiribati |
| 9am | Fiji | Vs | Tonga |
| 1pm | Samoa | Vs | Northern Marianas |
| 1pm | New Caledonia | Vs | Tonga |
| 1pm | Tahiti | Vs | Kiribati |
| 5pm | Samoa | Vs | Kiribati |
| 5pm | Tahiti | Vs | Tonga |
| 5pm | Fiji | Vs | Northern Marianas |
| Tuesday 9 July 2019 | |||
| 10am | Samoa | Vs | Tonga |
| 10am | Tahiti | Vs | Fiji |
| 10am | New Caledonia | Vs | Northern Marianas |
| 3pm | New Caledonia | Vs | Fiji |
| 3pm | Tahiti | Vs | Samoa |
| 3pm | Kiribati | Vs | Northern Marianas |
| Wednesday 10 July 2019 | |||
| 10am | New Caledonia | Vs | Samoa |
| 10am | Tonga | Vs | Northern Marianas |
| 10am | Fiji | Vs | Kiribati |
| 3pm | Tahiti | Vs | New Caledonia |
| 3pm | Fiji | Vs | Samoa |
| 3pm | Tonga | Vs | Kiribati |
Two courts will be live streamed throughout the Mixed Team event, available to watch on samoa2019.ws.
The draws and results will also be available to view on bit.ly/PGx2019.
