The Country has just launched a consultation to build a new hall in the Henri Hiro college sports complex in Faa’a. A 620 million francs project which will host the badminton and table tennis events during the Pacific Games. And which will serve in the long term as a competition and training hall for the two federations, keen to train more young athletes.
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A common house for table tennis players and bad players. This is the project confirmed this Monday by Grands Travaux de Polynésie (G2P), which launched, on behalf of the IJSPF, a first project management contract for the construction of a hall on the Henri college sports complex Hiro of Faa’a. The site was selected, from the Tahiti 2027 application file, to host the badminton competitions of the Games. It took a few more discussions between the federations and the authorities for the table tennis events to also be repatriated there. The federal ping-pong hall in Pater is in fact not large enough to host an event of this scale, and finances did not allow two new structures to be considered.
But regardless of this collocation, the two couples “already get along very well” and are ready to share. The main thing for her was to see the project come to fruition: this notice of public call for competition, which estimates the project at 620 million francs including tax, should reassure them.
International standard pitches and 400-seat stands
For G2P and the IJSPF, which manages the Henri Hiro sports complex, it is a question of having a very modular structure. Of the 1,850 meters of surface area to be built, a little more than 1,000 square meters will have to meet the standard dimensions of indoor sports such as futsal, handball or volleyball. But it will be shuttlecocks and small balls that will be in the spotlight, with the requirement to be able to accommodate 4 badminton courts and 8 table tennis courts (which each require an area of 14 by 7 meters) to competition standards. international.
The contract also provides for a reception hall, changing rooms, toilets, storage areas, offices and an infirmary, a “physical preparation room” optional in the contract, but above all a stand with 400 numbered seats. The project owner specifies that the new construction must be “ exemplary in terms of accessibility, both for the public and for athletes”, table tennis being also a disabled sport discipline at the Pacific Games.
Future “HQ” for the two federations
For the badminton federation, such equipment will represent a real “leap forward”. Driving enthusiasts do not have their own room in Polynesia today, and the competitions take place for the most part in the UPF gymnasium, where the largest club in the country also meets, the “Badminton University Club of the French Polynesia. The new room, future “HQ” of the “ Tahiti Badminton Federation”, will help develop the discipline at school and extracurricular levels, energize meetings between clubs and above all select and train future elite badminton players.
As for table tennis players, we hope that the opening of this room will not mark the end of that of Pater, very well placed and at the heart of the activity of this federation, a historic provider of medals at the Pacific Games. But it is in Faa’a that, after the Games, the major competitions, certain training sessions – the room can be divided in two to accommodate several disciplines at the same time – and activities of the Polynesian Tennis Performance Center will take place. table.
The schedule is tight: G2P requests a room “delivered and fully operational in the 1st quarter of 2027”. This leaves little time for construction delays and taking possession of the premises before the Games, scheduled between the end of July and the beginning of August. “But at least we should have our infrastructure in time”whisper federal officials. A relief which is not yet shared by all the federations involved in the preparation of Tahiti 2027.
