Pacific Games: CNMI to compete in 7 sports

V1 canoes are on the shore of Kilili Beach waiting for junior paddlers who are training for the 2019 Pacific Games that will be held in Apia, Samoa next month. (Contributed Photo)

Team CNMI will field athletes in seven sports for next month’s Pacific Games in Apia, Samoa.

From more than 10 events, the Commonwealth will only compete in canoe (va’a) swimming, beach volleyball, athletics, tennis, badminton, and golf, as other sports federations could not make the trip to Samoa due to funding problems.

The Northern Marianas National Paddle Sports Federation initially planned to send men’s and women’s teams in the V-6 canoe races, but opted to have entries only in the V1 event due to budget constraints. It would cost a little over $3,000 to send a delegate to the quadrennial competition and Northern Marianas Sports Association would only provide $60,000 subsidy with the money to be divided among the CNMI representatives (both athletes and officials) to the Games. The amount of financial assistance per delegate will depend on the number of people going to Samoa, but it will not be lower than $500.

“We decided as a team a couple of weeks ago that it wasn’t feasible to move forward with going to the Pacific Games. The main reason for us cancelling is the cost of the trip. However we will be sending junior (males and females) V1 (one-man canoe) paddlers to the competition. The federation felt that this would be a good development opportunity for our junior paddlers and they have been training hard and are hungry to compete,” NMNPSF vice president Dino Manning said.

“While we realize that our juniors will be going against the world’s best (Tahiti, New Caledonia, Cook Islands, Fiji, etc.) we are confident that the experience will be worth the trip and that they will come back as better paddlers and hopefully motivated to continue training and racing,” Manning added.

Mayiah Duenas, Kalea Andrew, Jack Aahn, Steven Goodwin, and coaches Jason Tarkong and Justin Andrew are registered as NMPSF’s delegates, according to the list provided by CNMI chef de mission Paul Plunkett.

Tennis has the most delegates with 11. The team is made up of players Colin Ramsey, Bobby Cruz, Carol Lee, Colin Sinclair, Isabel Heras, Ken Song, Malika Miyawaki, Robbie Schorr, and Tania Tan, head coach Jeff Race, and assistant coach Lydia Tan.

Tania will also represent the CNMI in athletics, which has four more athletes competing in Samoa—Zarinae Sapong, Lia Rangamar, Traven Quitugua, and Beo Ngirchongor. Greg Iginoef is also part of the delegation and is listed as the coach.

Badminton will have Andreu Galvez, Nicole Malasarte, Janelle and Jordan Pangilinan, Daniel and Ezekiel Macario, and Nathan Guerrero, while beach volleyball will be represented by father and son Tyce and Logan Mister and Chris Nelson.

Golf is bannered by veteran Joe “Kamikaze” Camacho and he will team up with J.J. Atalig, Sebastian Camacho, Ryan Kim, and Marco Peter. Swimming will have young guns Juhn Tenorio, Aika Watanabe, Sophia Gauran, Jinju Thompson, Lennosuke Suzuki, and David Boyer.

The Pacific Games will run from July 7 to 20.