People from close to 30 countries from around the world will be in Samoa for the International Vaa Federation (I.V.F.) World Distance Championships hosted in Samoa next month.

More than a thousand people are estimated to attend the international tournament.

And while preparations are underway which is being led by the Samoa Outrigger Canoe Association (S.O.C.A.), the British High Commission signed an agreement to donate SAT$30,000 to the S.O.C.A to assist with their preparations and for hosting of the event.

Held at the Tamaligi seawall on Friday, British High Commissioner to Samoa, Gareth Hoar said the donation is to highlight the elimination of plastics to help towards water bottles for the athletes who will be participating.

"First of all this is an international event so it's an event where people from around the world can come together including British people to experience beautiful Samoa," he said.

"From a government perspective, it's about profiling what we need to do to protect the ocean while also enjoying the oceans through events like this essentially.

"So for us we want to profile the global action required to protect the oceans and what we can do locally as well to make people aware of the challenges in protecting the oceans and particularly around the dumping of the plastics in the ocean which is not good for the ocean and environment.

S.O.C.A president, To'aigaoaloalii Matthew Wendt who signed the agreement with Mr. Hoar said this is Samoa's first time hosting the event which was originally scheduled for 2021 but plans fell through due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This will be the third tournament since the inception in 2017. The first one was held in Tahiti in 2017 and Australia in 2019.

"This is the third tournament but on every alternate year, they also have the world sprint championship so those are pretty much the sprint version of the alo va'a," he said.

"That's been running since the early 90s and that's actually the last time since Samoa hosted an event of this kind back in 1994 when we had the world sprints in Samoa.

"The agreement that's been signed today  through the kind assistance of the British government will go towards helping funding for the event so this will help a lot with the water stations for the athletes and a lot of mobility for the athletes when they move between here and the villages.

"So the village will be out here at Friendship park, so only the paddlers in the area that we'll be in. They'll be the only ones allowed on the beach with the officials during the week of the event.

"Our event, we've been working hard to try and secure assistance because of the magnitude of the event just this year, we did get assistance from the government of Samoa but we continue to try and make sure that everyone is catered for at the games next month."

About 29 countries in total are expected to participate and because there are many categories, a little over a thousand paddlers will be attending.

Asked whether Samoa is ready to host an international tournament in terms of accommodation, transport and so forth, the president said yes.

"We've already got in place. We've actually relied a lot on the community and private sector in terms of the accommodation and transport so this event is going to be a huge boost to the economy," he said.

"If you're talking about a hundred plus athletes in a country, and all of the coaches, managers and supporters, this is essentially us promoting Samoa as a destination. Not just them for tourism but for sports tourism as well.

"What we're going to reinforce is, we're not going to be allowing any single use plastics at any of the venues, just to highlight this critical issue that's happening everywhere.

'So we hope to use the event as a spring boat to highlight, find any issues as well and solution so we're thankful the governments have come on board as well as a lot of our environmental bodies such as SPREP. As we all know, for a small island like ours, the ocean is our livelihood so we need to protect them."

There will also be para athletes attending. The Samoa Fire and Emergency Services Authority (S.F.E.S.A.), Police, Red Cross, and health officials will also be present for the event that is to be held from the 10-19 August.