{"id":59918,"date":"2023-11-18T04:00:02","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T19:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/nov\/18\/sharon-firisua-solomon-islands-pacific-games-gold-marathon-paris-olympics"},"modified":"2023-11-18T04:00:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T19:00:02","slug":"from-lucky-shoes-to-olympic-trailblazer-solomon-islands-athlete-pushes-for-pacific-games-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=59918","title":{"rendered":"From lucky shoes to Olympic trailblazer: Solomon Islands athlete pushes for Pacific Games gold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran long-distance runner Sharon Firisua among stars competing in the two-week tournament set to begin in Honiara<\/p>\n<p>Crocodiles are a dangerous part of life in Solomon Islands, and when two-time Olympian Sharon Firisua saw eyes peering out of the Yarra River in Melbourne one brisk winter morning after a training run, she feared the worst and shrieked in terror.<\/p>\n<p>Her coach roared with laughter as she fled the riverbank.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/nov\/18\/sharon-firisua-solomon-islands-pacific-games-gold-marathon-paris-olympics\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran long-distance runner Sharon Firisua among stars competing in the two-week tournament set to begin in HoniaraCrocodiles are a dangerous part of life in Solomon Islands, and when two-time Olympian Sharon Firisua saw eyes peering out of the Yarra &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3025,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,2198,43,874,63,203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-athletics","category-australia-news","category-pacific-islands","category-solomon-islands","category-sport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3025"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59919,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59918\/revisions\/59919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}