Olympic team manager of Samoa’s boxers dies at Paris Games

PARIS (AP) — The team manager of the top-seeded men’s heavyweight boxer at the Paris Olympics died at the athletes village in Saint-Denis.

Lionel Fatu Elika died on Friday morning local time at the village, the Oceania regional group of Olympic national committees said in a statement on behalf of its Samoan member.

The International Olympic Committee said Fatu Elika died of natural causes. In a statement Saturday, the IOC expressed “its condolences to the entire Samoan NOC, his family and friends.”

Fatu Elika was at the Olympics with a Samoan team that has one boxer who is a strong medal contender, Ato Plodzicki-Faoagali.

“No words can express how I feel but rest in love coach Lionel,” Plodzicki-Faoagali wrote Saturday in an Instagram post about his team leader whom he described as “Grand Master.”

Plodzicki-Faoagali starts his 92-kilogram competition Sunday in a round-of-16 bout against a Belgian opponent. The 25-year-old Australia-born boxer is competing at his second Summer Games.

The Samoa Olympic body’s president Pauga Talalelei Pauga said in the Oceania statement: “Lionel was one of Samoa’s top boxing coaches and a great believer in the Olympic ideal.”

The Paris organizing committee said it was “deeply saddened to learn of the death of a member of the Samoan delegation. Our thoughts are with his family, his loved ones and his delegation.”