NMIVA warms up to ‘Marianas Cup’ idea

Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association president Somia Quan takes part in drills during a recent volleyball clinic at the Agape Gymnasium. (MARK RABAGO)

The Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association appears to be agreeable to the idea of launching a CNMI-Guam competition patterned after the Marianas Cup for all sports.

“In years prior and for a number of years, we had a premier beach volleyball event called the Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival that was held on Saipan and Guam. In addition to local talent from our region, professional beach volleyball players would fly to compete in this tournament,” said NMIVA president Somia Quan.

The NMIVA head said the Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival did a lot in growing the sport of volleyball in the Commonwealth.

“While they were here, they’d host clinics for the community. So, I think it’s a great idea to make this happen as it gives our athletes another opportunity to compete in addition to the quadrennial competitions like Micronesian Games and Pacific Games,” she added.

Officially sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball since 2008, NMIVA held its last Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival in 2015.

A combination of events that spans the generations and abilities of players, the last year of event saw only a junior tournament and the Kids Cup held in the Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival.

Under the Marianas Cup concept pushed by the Northern Marianas Sports Association, CNMI teams will challenge Guam teams every year.

NMSA has so far floated four options on how the Marianas Cup would proceed. The first option would be Guam hosting as much as 18 sports. The second option is the CNMI will take the hosting duties. The third is the CNMI and Guam will split the sports with half taking place in the latter and the other half in the former. The fourth, which Tan concedes is the most doable, is individual sports will arrange their respective Marianas Cup events against their counterpart sports federations in Guam.

NMSA president Jerry Tan said the genesis of the Marianas Cup idea came about following the postponement of the 2022 Micronesian Games. He said a lot of athletes training for the 2022 Games in the Marshall Islands would effectively have to wait another year to compete in a regional event.

The Marianas Cup, Tan said, would give athletes the impetus to train year-round because they always have a yearly competition to look forward to.