Vanuatu-bound NMI track team perseveres

The newly resurfaced Oleai Sports Complex track and field facility has yet to be opened, forcing the three Mini Games-bound runners to look for alternative training venues. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Northern Marianas Athletics development officer Elias Rangamar knows the challenge the three-member CNMI national athletics team is facing when it comes to having a proper training facility and he is proud to say that the squad perseveres.

“It has been a challenge for our team to have no actual track oval to train with. They could not get the feel running on an actual rubber surface with the actual distances. We don’t have any track to train on, especially with the track oval still closed after the repairs. For now, we use any available facility,” Rangamar said.

Veterans Beo Ngirchongor and Zarinae Sapong and Jamie Pangelinan are the members of the small team that wiill represent the CNMI in the 10th Pacific Mini Games set from Dec. 4 to 15 in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Rangamar and Ron Olopai will join them as coaches. Ngirchongor will be competing in the men’s 200m and 400m runs, while Sapong and Pangelinan are both entered in the women’s 100 and 200m races. NMA chose to send only sprinters to Vanuatu since their athletes in other running and field events also have no adequate training facility.

“We don’t have the venue for our athletes in the field events. We need a field just like the one at the Oleai Sports Complex. You can’t just train in any open field because we might hit or damage something,” said Rangamar.

For now, the Vanuatu-bound CNMI track team is using the CPA Airport field, which also hosted the first three legs of the Annual NMA All Schools Cross Country Series. The runners are hoping they will get the chance to use the field at the Hopwood Middle School. They compensate the lack of training facility through dedication as they train four to five times a week, starting with a 5am session. The CNMI athletes sometimes hold practice sessions twice a day.

In related news, Tahiti has threatened to skip the Vanuatu Mini Games if the Pacific Games Council will not drop the names of the boxers submitted by the Polynesian Boxing Federation.

French Polynesia President Édouard Fritch, in a letter to PGC president Vidhya Lakhan, said FPB is not a duly recognized national federation by the French Polynesia (Tahiti) Olympic Committee. Lakhan, in response, said FPB is backed by the International Boxing Association with no less than its president Dr. Wu Ching-kuo sending a letter to the PGC, stating that FPB is the duly recognized boxing group in Tahiti.