Let's sports unite the nation. That was the message from the President of the Badminton Samoa Federation, Dino Smith as the association held a fun day on Saturday in Tuanaimato.

"Sports have no barriers, no language barriers, no cultural barriers. Sports unites everyone. The most difficult problem is getting the athletes and training them," he said. 

"They need to commit their time. I have a lot of good athletes but they are working full time. They're not able to make it. But we will try out competitions."

The event featured 300 athletes from seven different sports. It was a day when everyone had a chance to try their hand in badminton.

"At the end of the day, our goal is to promote healthy living and to promote a balanced diet and participation in sports. We had seven sports present today, we had hockey, badminton, table tennis, netball, and athletics at the back and other sports," Smith said. 

"It was a success, everybody came and enjoyed themselves." 

Smith said the other focus was the revival of the sports. He is trying to introduce the sport to as many schools as possible with the hope of starting a national inter-school competition.

There are a few competitions coming up and the federation is hoping to get into the Oceania and Commonwealth competitions. 

Smith said their main challenge was securing full-time athletes. He said he hoped that with the schools' competition, he could identify new talent. He said the potential for Samoa to do something on the world stage was there.

The People's Republic of China was the main sponsor for the event while 22 companies came out to support the cause.

Smith said everything takes time to build. He said these were the stepping stones.