Samoa

The 21-year-old Schuster took a closely fought victory in the men's 200 metres backstroke to make history before Lane followed with gold in the same discipline in the women's race straight after.

Schuster, a silver and bronze medallist at Port Moresby 2015, exclusively told insidethegames that training in China and the United States has made a huge difference for him - but that he felt more patriotic and Samoan than ever before following his win.

That's the view of the local journalists' association president who says restrictions placed on local TV stations makes news coverage unfeasible.

Rudy Bartley said while local station TV3 re-broadcasts the games, it provides no added news coverage.

Mr Bartley said the host broadcaster, Singapore based MMG, is charging local stations $US750 for three minutes of daily content which cannot be used until two hours after the event.

He said there was no games footage being used in local news broadcasts.

The women prevailed 16-4 in the gold medal match at Apia Park to become the event's first ever women's rugby league champions.

Fiji captain Timaima Ravisa opened the scoring with a breakaway try late in the first half and capped the result with an intercept try after the full-time siren had sounded.

An emotional Ravisa said PNG is a tough team to beat but they worked hard on defence and were able to capitalise on their opponents mistakes.

 The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture, Loua Keneti Sio, presented gold medals to Tahiti and New Caledonia on Monday at the open water swimming in Mulifanua.

Samoa came up just short with a fourth placed finish in both the men's and women's events but Loau is confident the hosts will be on the Games medal table soon.

The competition was recently dominated by Fiji at the last Pacific Games with four gold, two silver and two bronze medals across men’s and women’s events.

The event will also feature popular names that will be defending their titles.

The young Cook Islands men’s pair Taiki Paniani and Aidan Zittersteijn, who won bronze at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (the country’s first ever Commonwealth Games medal) will be competing at Samoa 2019 in all four men’s events, and gunning for further silverware.

Fiji, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tahiti will contest singles, doubles, mixed doubles and team events for men and women.

PNG, New Caledonia and Fiji are expected to dominate after sharing 21 available medals amongst them at the 2015 Pacific Games in Port Moresby.

New Caledonia’s Nicolas Massenet who won gold in the men’s singles, men’s doubles and men’s team competition at Port Moresby 2015 is returning to defend all of his titles.

A sustained storm in the hours leading up to the Ceremony initially looked likely to cast a cloud over proceedings but organisers were left thankful when the weather cleared an hour before the start.

The Ceremony began with the Parade of Nations and 2015 hosts Papua New Guinea led the delegations into the stadium.

Samoa were the last of the 24 nations and territories to enter the packed Apia Park venue with their 506-strong team led by flagbearer Feagaiga Stowers from weightlifting.

More than 5000 athletes and team officials marched in last night's opening ceremony at Apia Park, as a packed house witnessed a three hour celebration of Samoan culture.

And there was never any doubt who would get the loudest cheer from the Apia crowd.

19 year-old weightlifter Feagaiga Stowers had the honour of leading the home nation onto the field as flag bearer.

Samoa are the only country competing in all 27 sports over the next two weeks, with the Games' biggest delegation of 506 athletes in stark contrast to the Marshall Islands, with just 28.

The Samoa Agriculture & Fisheries Productivity and Marketing Project will strengthen the management, productivity and climate resilience of Samoa’s agricultural and fisheries sectors and support Samoan farmers and fishers to improve links with agro-processors and traders. A key part of the project is the rehabilitation and construction of infrastructure, including nurseries, crop drying facilities and cold storage at fish markets; all to be built or rehabilitated to disaster-resilient standards.

On the tenth leg of the relay, athletes from Vanuatu and Tonga ran together with the students from George Brown Primary School, a Methodist Church of Samoa school.

Many of the schools representing the different countries that are participating in the Samoa 2019 Pacific Games have brought a new audience to support the torch relay - people from neighbouring countries.