{"id":65636,"date":"2024-07-16T04:00:03","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T19:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/16\/our-whole-country-is-behind-them-samoas-weightlifters-chasing-olympic-glory"},"modified":"2024-07-16T04:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T19:00:03","slug":"our-whole-country-is-behind-them-samoas-weightlifters-chasing-olympic-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=65636","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Our whole country is behind them\u2019: Samoa\u2019s weightlifters chasing Olympic glory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pacific nation has won a single Olympic medal, but hopes two of its top athletes can boost the tally at the Paris Games<\/p>\n<p>It was in a village just outside Samoa\u2019s capital, Apia, that Don Opeloge was this year bestowed a chiefly title. Awarded the appellation La\u2019auli to mark his achievements as an athlete and as a token of appreciation and recognition of service it was an important cultural honour in the Pacific country.<\/p>\n<p>When he competes on the Olympic stage later this month Opeloge will see if he can add another honour to his name. The 25-year-old weightlifter and his training partner, Iuniarra Sipaia, will soon make the 27-hour journey from their island home to compete in Paris. Both represent Samoa\u2019s strongest medal chances.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/16\/our-whole-country-is-behind-them-samoas-weightlifters-chasing-olympic-glory\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pacific nation has won a single Olympic medal, but hopes two of its top athletes can boost the tally at the Paris GamesIt was in a village just outside Samoa\u2019s capital, Apia, that Don Opeloge was this year bestowed a chiefly title. Awarded the appe&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4339,"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":[41,874,3138,936],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-pacific-islands","category-paris-olympic-games-2024","category-samoa"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65636","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\/4339"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65637,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65636\/revisions\/65637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}