No CNMI athletes in ’09 Mini Games

The CNMI is skipping next year’s Mini South Pacific Games in Rarotonga, Cook Islands after failing to get commitments from three sports association which earlier signified their interests to send athletes to the regional meet.

“We’re not committing athletes to the Mini Games,” said Michael A. White, president of the Northern Marianas Amateur Sports Association during Thursday night’s NMASA monthly meeting.

White presided over the meeting held at the conference room of the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium and asked sailing and athletics about updates on their planned participation in the Cook Islands Mini Games.

Sailing’s Tony Stearns said he and wife Janet McCullough would not be able to make it to next year’s Mini Games due to business and family commitments.

“My father is sick and we have to attend to business matters,” Stearns told Saipan Tribune after the NMASA meeting.

Stearns added they found the trip to Rarotonga quite difficult and inconvenient.

Two major carriers fly to Rarotonga, namely the Air Rarotonga and Pacific Blue. There is no direct flight from Saipan to the Cook Islands. One has to go to either New Zealand or Australia first before making it to Rarotonga.

Athletics is begging off from the Mini Games for monetary reason.

Golf is the third association that had shown an interest in competing in the Cook Islands, but the sport’s representative had been absent from NMASA’s meetings in the past months and has yet to inform White of their commitment to the Games.

White will be leaving for the Cook Islands later this month for the Pacific Games Council General Assembly and he needed to inform the organizing committee about the status of the CNMI’s participation in the Mini Games.

Next year’s Mini Games will run from Sept. 21 to Oct. 2 with 19 island-nations committing to send delegates.

The host had only lined up 15 events for the Games due to lack of facilities. The list include athletics, boxing, body building, golf, lawn bowls, netball, rugby 7’s, rugby league, sailing, squash, table tennis, touch, triathlon, canoeing, and weightlifting.

The Cook Islands have only two main sports facilities, namely the Tereora National Stadium and the Raemaru Sports Ground.

A third one is under construction after the organizing committee secured funding for an indoor stadium at Tereora. The indoor stadium is expected to be completed in June next year.

Meanwhile, NMASA has a new vice president in tennis’ Jeff Race, who replaced Michael Stewart.

Stewart, who was representing the Saipan Swim Club, left the island in July to coach a team in News Mexico.

The Cook Islands will become the only country to host the Mini Games for the second time, after it hosted the event in 1985.

Honiara, Solomon Islands hosted the first in 1981; Nuku’alofa, Tonga in 1989; Port Vila, Vanuatu (1993), Pago Pago, American Samoa (1997), Kingston, Norfolk Island (2001): and Koror, Palau (2005).

Wallis and Futuna won the right to host it in 2013.

New Caledonia dominated the 2005 Palau Mini Games with a 56-29-27 gold-silver-bronze tally.

The CNMI, which was anchored by swimming sensation Nina Mosley, managed to win four gold, 12 silver and seven bronze medals for 11th place among the 19 countries and territories that participated. [B][I](Nazario Rodriguez Jr.)[/I][/B]