Team CNMI upbeat for Cairns trip

Team CNMI, from left, Rachel Abrams, Beo Ngirchongor, Don Ada, Jeron Castillo, coach Ron Olopai, Zarinae Sapong, and Evan Miller pose at the Francisco C. Ada-Saipan International Airport before boarding for their flight to Guam. (Jon Perez)

The seven-member CNMI athletics delegation left yesterday for the 2015 Oceania Area Championships in the hopes of achieving their goals of improving their personal best records in their respective events.

The fifth edition of the Oceania Athletics Association-organized tournament, where 450 athletes from 21 OAA federations, is set from May 8 to 10 in Barlow Park. An athletics clinic will also be held on Wednesday.

Rachel Abrams, Beo Ngirchongor, and Zarinae Sapong along with Marianas High School students Donavin Ada, Jeron Castillo, and Evan Miller, and coach Ron Olopai took the 50-minute trip to Guam where they will have a one-day layover.

They will then take a connecting flight to Cairns, Australia at 7:55pm today.

Abrams, Ngirchongor, and Sapong are veterans of various athletics competition, the last in the 2014 Micronesian Games in Pohnpei.

Abrams will be competing in her second OAA after Tahiti as she also represented the CNMI in the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcs, Poland and Barcelona, Spain, and in an IAAF indoor event in Sopot, Poland and Istanbul, Turkey.

It will be the seventh Oceania-organized tournament and third in OAA for Ngirchongor, who previously competed in Tahiti, Palau, and Cairns. Sapong went to Rarotonga last year when Cook Islands hosted the OAA Championship.

Castillo and Miller are first-timers in competing in an international event, while the 14-year-old Ada, who also plays baseball and football, will be making his debut in athletics but has represented the Commonwealth a number of times as a CNMI All-Star member in the Little League.

Abrams, who bagged three gold medals in last year’s Micro Games, is entered in her pet events in the 100-meter dash and 200m run where she hopes to duplicate her record-breaking win.

Abrams won the 200m run gold last year in Pohnpei when she clocked 26.29 seconds to shatter the 26.41 record of former Team CNMI sprinter Yvonne Bennett in the Palau edition of the quadrennial event in 2010.

Ngirchongor is competing in the 200m and 400m runs, and 400m hurdles, while Sapong, who won silver in Pohnpei, will be joining Abrams in the 100m and 200m runs. He won the 400m run and 400m hurdles gold in the Micro Games.

Ada will try his luck in all throwing events—discus, javelin, and shotput—while Castillo will race in the 100m and 200m runs, and will also compete in long jump. Miller is entered in the field events of high jump and long jump.