Over 1,600 expected for Palau Mini Games

A total of 1,611 athletes and officials are expected for the 2004 Palau South Pacific Mini Games set from July 25 to Aug. 4 of this year.

According to the Palau South Mini Games website, 1,472 athletes, coaches, and trainers and 139 officials, medical staff, and media are bound for the quadrennial event this summer.

According to the figures, Guam will be sending the largest delegation to Palau with 249 athletes and officials. Host Palau is next with 248, followed by Fiji’s 180, Federated States of Micronesia’s 165, and Papua New Guinea’s 164.

The CNMI is in sixth place in terms of the number of delegation with 151, while Tonga with 139, Samoa with 138, and Kiribati with 129 are next. South Pacific Games and Mini Games powerhouse New Caledonia follows with 126 and Nauru is not far behind with 116.

Marshall Islands will be sending 79 athletes and officials, Solomon Islands 77, Cook Islands 56, and Tuvalu 51 are next in the depth chart. American Samoa with 47, Wallis & Futuna and Vanuatu with 46 each, Niue with 43, and Norfolk Island with four make up the rest of the participating island nations’ delegations in the competition.

Athletics will be welcoming the most participants to the Games with 235. A far second in the number of athletes expected is canoeing with 182, followed by fast-pitch softball with 160, basketball with 124, and baseball with 105.

Weightlifting is sixth in the number of expected participants with 104 athletes bound for Palau. Swimming is next with 88 tankers expected, while table tennis and lawn tennis are tied with 73 netters coming. Beach volleyball with 42, wrestling with 40, and triathlon with 24 close out the breakdown of athletes based on the sport for the Mini Games.

In addition, 201 coaches, 27 trainers, 24 Chef de Missions, 27 administrators, 23 government officials, 19 members of the South Pacific Games Council, and 25 media personnel are coming to the Mini Games.

The number is expected to change as participating countries and island nations have a tendency to scale up or down their delegations as the date for the Mini Games approach. Also Tahiti and Tokelau have yet to submit their estimated number of participants to Palau.

The CNMI, for instance, has scaled down its delegation from the projected 177 to the present number of 151.

The discrepancy resulted from the Basketball Association of the Northern Mariana Islands deciding late last year not to field a men’s and women’s team to the Mini Games. The Northern Mariana Islands Track and Field Federation also opted to send only two athletes from the original eight.