1971 South Pacific Games

The 4th South Pacific Games (French: 4e Jeux du Pacifique sud; Tahitian: A 4 o te Ha‘utira‘a no Pātifita), also known as Papeete 1971 (Tahitian: Papeʻete 1971), held in Papeete, Tahiti from 25 August to 5 September 1971, was the fourth edition of the South Pacific Games.^[1]

1971 South Pacific Games

Host city	Papeete
Country	Tahiti
Nations	14
Athletes	~2,000
Events	17 sports
Opening	August 25, 1971 (1971-08-25)
Closing	September 5, 1971 (1971-09-05)
Opened by	Pierre Messmer
← 1969 Port Moresby 1975 Tamuning →

Approximately 1,500 male athletes and 500 female athletes participated in the games.^[2]

Participating countries

Fourteen Pacific nations or territories competed at the Games:^[2]

• American Samoa
• Cook Islands (70)
• Fiji
• French Polynesia
• Gilbert and Ellice Islands
• Guam
• Nauru
• New Caledonia (200+)
• New Hebrides
• Papua and New Guinea (132)^[3]
• Solomon Islands
• Tonga
• Wallis and Futuna
• Western Samoa

Note: A number in parentheses indicates the size of a country's team (where known).

Sports

There were 17 sports contested at the 1971 South Pacific Games:^[4][2]

•  Archery (2)
•  Athletics (35) (details)
•  Basketball (2) (details)
•  Boxing (11)
•  Cycling (6) ^a
•  Football (1) (details)
•  Golf (2)
•  Judo (6)
•  Rugby union (1) (details)
•  Sailing (1) ^b
•  Softball (1) ^c
•  Swimming (1)
•  Table tennis (7)
•  Tennis (7)
•  Underwater fishing (2)
•  Volleyball (2)
•  Weightlifting (8)

Note: A number in parentheses indicates how many medal events were contested in that sport (where known).

Final medal table

Medals were awarded in 117 events:

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	New Caledonia (NCL)	33	32	27	92
2	Papua New Guinea (PNG)	28	28	21	77
3	French Polynesia (PYF)	22	24	24	70
4	Fiji (FIJ)	16	17	13	46
5	Western Samoa (WSM)	9	3	5	17
6	Tonga (TON)	4	3	4	11
7	Guam (GUM)	2	3	8	13
8	Wallis and Futuna (WLF)	2	1	6	9
9	Solomon Islands (SOL)	1	2	2	5
10	American Samoa (ASA)	0	2	12	14
11	Cook Islands (COK)	0	1	3	4
12	New Hebrides	0	1	0	1
–	Gilbert and Ellice Islands	0	0	0	0
–	Nauru (NRU)	0	0	0	0
Totals (12 entries)		117	117	125	359

Source: ^[1]

Notes

^a Cycling: Six events were held: 1 km time trial, individual road race (111 km), 74 km road race, 4 km individual pursuit, 4 km Olympic pursuit, and an individual sprint.^[5]

^b The sailing event was for the Fireball dinghy class.^[6]

^c The women's softball tournament was won by Guam, with Papua New Guinea and American Samoa taking second and third place respectively,^[5] although the Oceania Sport Information Centre report (on their Sporting Pulse webpage as at October 2015) omits the result.^[4]