First Polynesian track and field event in a decade held in Auckland

Soloa Malua is wearing socks with his jandals at the Trusts Arena in west Auckland as he looks out across the stadium track.

A Tuvaluan athlete, he's found the weather a little chilly for his liking — and shook his head, while smiling, as he compared Trust stadium to his usual training place in Tuvalu — the airport runway.

"Its hard to believe but we use the airstrip the runway for trainings it's nothing like this here," he said.

Back in his isolated country of Tuvalu with a population of around 10,000 people, Soloa uses buckets filled with water to do weights trainings.

"We don't have a gym... just a natural gym," he laughed.

It's why the Polynesian Track and Field Championships — which were being held at the Trusts Arena — were so important.

It marked the first time in more than a decade that they have been held, and it was running in conjunction with the New Zealand Track & Field Championships.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has funded athletes from seven countries — Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tahiti, American Samoa, French Polynesia, and Niue — to participate with support from Athletics New Zealand.

World Athletics Council member and Olympic gold medallist Dame Valerie Adams has been working closely with the teams.

"It's about building capacity it's about giving opportunity to compete especially for our smaller nations its about exposing them to elite sport to elite competition," she said.

Before the competition kicked off, the teams went to a three-day development camp which included coaching, mentoring and workshops with topics such as nutrition.

Dame Valerie said as a Tongan herself, running and organising the camp was deeply personal.

"What makes it special is it's poly [polynesian] for poly... we underestimate just how important that is — especially for our people because they don't open up the way they do if they don't see anyone in their likeness," she said.

She said she understood and saw the way the Pacific athletes evolved.

"We're not the type of people who come out and start yapping away out in public and our athletes are very much like that. Once you understand that, then you modify the way you present, or you speak, or you are with them to bring the best out of them," she explained.

On the first day, she said, the athletes couldn't even say "boo".

"Second day, everybody's up saying thank you to everybody who came and presented, shared things openly in an environment which was open and safe but also you've got to remember [the] language barrier right?

"Some of these kids hardly speak English, but they were quite confident enough to stand up and share their story, their name, what their goals are, what they want to achieve and everybody was pumped once we got into finishing that part of the programme straight into the competition."

The Tongan team led by manager and Tonga Athletics Association secretary general Alifeleti Tuihalamaka said they've learnt a lot about time management, sleeping, and nutrition.

He said they needed to look into biometrics to raise their international competitiveness.

"I have spoken with a few people here asking them if they can provide that assistance in order for my coaches to gain that knowledge we don't have that expertise back home," he said.

The Tongans have their eye on future Olympics. While New Zealand paid for ten athletes from each country to come to the Polynesian champs, the Kingdom paid for more — in total a team of 24.

One of the youngest athletes at the champs is 13-year-old Samoan Janiva Faafia, who was thrilled to make the Under 16 finals of the 100 and 200 metres the only Polynesian to do so.

"My goal is to represent Samoa and the Olympics and hopefully get a medal for Samoa," she said with pride.

Discus star Alex Rose — based in the US —was the first Pacific Islands male to win a medal for Samoa at last year's World Athletics Champs.

He said being part of the New Zealand meet, and being surrounded by Pasifika had been incredible.

"My biggest takeaway is going to be how important the sense of community is just being with my Samoan teammates watching them compete and watching all of the Pacific Islanders compete has been so huge and important to me and I truly feel like, you know, we're all one team in Polynesia," he said.

Rose said he hoped he could inspire others.

"I think a lot of the Polynesian athletes they have so much potential they have so much strength and grit and you know, there's so much untapped there that I hope they realise that they have it in themselves to achieve things like this too."