Sydney: For a handful of South Pacific athletes it may be now or never to take part in the Olympics because rising sea levels are causing their tiny island nations to sink and maybe one day disappear.

Tuvalu is sending three athletes to Beijing, its first Olympics after being accepted into the International Olympic Committee in 2007.

Tuvalu is a ring of nine Polynesian islands covering 560 sq. km of ocean, but with only 25.9 sq. kms of land. The biggest island is only 5.6 sq. kms.

So Tuvalu’s track and field athletes Asenate Manoa and Okilini Tinilau and weightlifter Logona Esau were forced to train in the larger South Pacific nation of Fiji and the French territory of New Caledonia.

Manoa stayed at a hotel in the Fijian capital Suva and ran to the track each day as a warm-up, before practising block starts for the first time in her career, then fell asleep at her desk.

“She’s never experienced this type of training before and she is just exhausted but she will go well in Beijing,” Oceania National Olympic Committee secretary general Robin Mitchell said.

Climate change experts say Tuvalu may disappear within 50 years. High winds, king tides and rising sea levels are already causing erosion. (REUTERS)