NC2011 makes pitch to CNMI

Organizers of the 2011 Pacific Games in New Caledonia personally invited athletes from the CNMI to take part in the 14th staging of the quadrennial event during a special briefing Wednesday night at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium conference room.

Members of the local sports governing body, led by Northern Marianas Amateur Sports Association president Michael A. White, attended the meeting that saw New Caledonia’s Pacific Games organizing committee—dubbed NC2011—present their plans for 2011.

Pacific Games Council secretary general David Boyd said his three-person group is in a yearlong, island-hopping mission to invite member nations of the council to take part in the 2011 Games.

“We are going on a roundtrip to the Pacific starting in the north with countries like the CNMI, Guam, and Palau to present the Games. [We want] to show the sports people here three years before the Games where the project is at. More specifically [we’re] here to meet with the sports people and learn from them what there expectations are for these Games so that we can make sure they will be comfortable when they go to New Caledonia in three years time,” he said.

Boyd added that New Caledonia last hosted the Games in 1997 but at that time the Games were much smaller both in terms of sports played and countries participating.

“Now the Pacific Games are very, very big. We will try to organize the maximum number of sports permitted by the Games charter which is 28.”

For her part, NC2011 president Pascale Bastien-Thiry said she expects all 22 countries of the Pacific Games Council to take part in the Games. She added that New Caledonia looks forward to hosting 3,500 athletes—5,000 including officials—in three years time.

“We hope to make these Games the best ever. But the Games in Samoa were very, very well organized and we have great pressure because of that. But we do hope to organize a beautiful and very friendly 2011 Pacific Games. We all look forward to welcoming people of the Northern Marianas to Noumea in 2011,” she said.

Asked how much New Caledonia has set aside for the 2011 Pacific Games, Bastien-Thiry said NC2011 will probably spend about $16 million to host the quadrennial event, roughly the same amount used by Samoa in staging the 2007 Games in Apia.

The amount does not include the construction of facilities for the 2011 Games.

She added that about 60 percent of the cost would be shouldered by the government with the rest raised through sponsorships and private donations.

Before arriving in the CNMI for their two-day stay, the New Caledonians visited Guam and plan to brief the sports bodies of Palau and Papua New Guinea before flying back to Noumea.

Boyd and Bastien-Thiry are joined in their whirlwind trip to the North Pacific by NC2011 protocol director Helen Court Wabete. They expect to brief other island nations that are part of the council next April.

Department of Community and Cultural Affairs secretary Cecilia T. Celis also attended the meeting.