NMBA pleased with success, turnout of qualifiers

Northern Marianas Badminton Association president Merlie Tolentino, second right, Badminton Oceania CEO Julie Carrel, second left, Northern Marianas Sports Association president Jerry Tan, left, and Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan general manager Robert Coates are seen in the press conference before the start of the tournaments last June 5.(LEIGH GASES)

Hosts of the two badminton Olympic qualifiers—the Crowne Plaza Northern Marianas Open 2023 and TakeCare Saipan International 2023—were pleased with its successful delivery of the tournaments.

Northern Marianas Badminton Association president Merlie Tolentino alluded to Badminton Oceania president Loke Poh Wong’s high praises of NMBA, and in turn said that NMBA is “pleased that we were able to give our visitors a good experience for two weeks and this was made possible by all the assistance we got from our volunteers, sponsors, and Badminton Oceania umpires and referees.”

The two tournaments were considered Grade 3—the highest International Challenge level event. 

The feedback from players in the tournaments were positive, according to Tolentino. She said one great feedback was on the transportation service provided during the whole two weeks of the tournament.

“Those athletes need[ed] to train and rest on time to get ready for their next game and having efficient and reliable transportation [was] critical to them. We did our best to transport them from the hotel to the two venues, the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium and TSL Sports Complex, and back. We had over 180 players, and a total of more than 200 participants to include the various teams’ officials/staff and competition umpires and referees. They are truly grateful for our island hospitality and many have expressed interest in coming back and competing again.”

Badminton Oceania CEO Julie Carrel summed up the feedback for the tournaments in this statement:

“NMBA has delivered two world class BWF International badminton tournaments on Saipan with good entries and a high caliber of players. Your level of delivery and service to the players, coaches and officials was outstanding; we have received significant positive feedback from these people The welcome dinner, the goodie bags, the farewell dinner all contributed to a very positive player experience which is usually not experienced at this level of tournament.”

Sharing more of BOC CEO comments: “You are a great team to work with; you make things happen, you ask questions and implement recommendations to a high standard—if every event delivery team I worked with was like your team, my life would be very easy. You have many very capable and willing people.  Everyone is very pleasant and polite which makes working with your entire team such a pleasure. I hope that you are all happy and satisfied with how the tournaments went and that your stakeholders including sponsors are also happy with their return on investment. We certainly would like to work with you again to deliver a similar model in 2024, two tournaments in consecutive weeks.”

For NMBA, the highlight of hosting the tournaments was the high level of play they witnessed. “As we all know, badminton is not a mainstream sport and here in the CNMI, badminton is still relatively new to our community. So, to see how spectators and NMI players, especially the young ones, were happy and excited as they watched the intense games is a good indication that interest in badminton will continue to pick up,” said Tolentino.

As to what could have been done better, Tolentino said with over 180 players, they could have set up more practice venues. Nevertheless, Tolentino said on a scale of 1-10 on how successful CNMI was on hosting an international badminton tourney for the first time, she rated it a 9. “There’s no perfect tournament and as organizers, we must always look for improvements,” she said.

With this exposure of high-level badminton to players in the CNMI, Tolentino said “Someday, we hope to develop players who can compete in these kinds of tournaments. Players from our interscholastic league and junior program watched the games for two weeks and I hope they get to draw inspiration from the visiting players to continue to commit to the sport, get better every day, and eventually have more opportunities to compete off-island.”

She added that it’s not only good for badminton, but for NMI sports tourism. When they were initially planning for this, they had no idea how many players would be coming. It ended up with more than 200 visitors who stayed for two weeks that stayed in hotels, dined in restaurants, and shopped at stores.

For what’s next, NMBA will work with Badminton Oceania for a debrief of the tournaments. The NMBA is also planning to host a couple of local tournaments and then work with the interscholastic league late this year.

On behalf of NMBA they thanked the following sponsors for their success: Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan, TakeCare, IT&E, D&Q, GPPC, Tan Siu Lin Foundation, USA Fanter, Marianas Visitors Authority, Marianas Variety, Saipan Computer Services-Ideal Sign, Hong Ye Construction, Island Apparel, Joeten Motors, Joeten Daidai Foundation, Traders Insurance, Cup BAB, Pacifica Insurance, Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation, CNMI Department of Fire And Emergency Medical Services, McDonald’s, Bridge Capital, Shirley’s Coffee Shop, MARPAC, Northern Marianas Sports Association, Pepoy’s Restaurant, Sun Palace, Vickie Izuka, Saipan Ice & Water Co., First Hawaiian Bank, AYD, Coca-Cola, E-Land, American Red Cross-NMI Chapter, MakeOver Salon, JET Holdings, Badminton Oceania, and Badminton World Federation.