Wrestling aims for full team for 2025 Mini Games team in Palau

After the successful debut sweep of gold by the NMI National Wrestling Team in the 10th Micronesian Games at the Marshall Islands, their sights are now set for the 2025 Pacific Mini Games in Palau.

The Northern Marianas Wrestling Federation made a comeback in NMI sports with their newfound formation in 2022 by board president Jason Tarkong, vice president and head coach Rick Bauer, and treasurer Kerri Bauer.

Just two years later in the recently concluded 10th Micronesian Games, they blew all Micronesian wrestlers away with their skill on the mat as James Attao-Greene Jr. and Ryan Babauta swept the gold in their weight classes of all three competitions—freestyle, Greco-Roman, and beach wrestling for a total of six medals for the team.

Rick Bauer said after the Games, “I look forward to this coming year and the anticipated growth for NMI Wrestling at the adult, teen and youth levels. We are already discussing the Games in 2025 and I would love to take a full team of wrestlers to Palau next summer. I look forward to the development of more wrestling talent in Saipan and continuing to watch wrestling grow in the CNMI.”

He then made a call for anyone interested in wrestling to contact Northern Marianas Wrestling Federation on Facebook. “Taking a full and capable men’s and women’s wrestling team to Palau would be great!” he said.

The 12th Pacific Mini Games will be held in Koror, Palau with the anticipated dates from June 29 to July 9, 2025.

As for Greene and Babauta’s performance in the 2024 Micro Games, he said, “I am very proud of both Jr. and Ryan and their efforts and performance over these past three days at the games. Over the past few weeks of training, and also everyday while we were here competing, I continually verbalized to them the goals and expectations of our trip to Majuro, that we were here to go to work, perform with dominance and earn gold in all three styles, and they did exactly that, three golds each in dominant fashion. I told them both that I am very proud of the way they wrestled and carried themselves this weekend.”

As to whether they exceeded his expectations, he said, “I have to admit, my expectations were very high, so it’s more that they executed the plan and met expectations. I have been wrestling with Junior and Ryan a lot over this training period and I know what they’re capable of, so admittedly, I had high expectations for both of them, and again, I’m very proud of how they both wrestled.”

Then, Bauer, on behalf of the Northern Marianas Wrestling Federation said, “I want to thank all of our sponsors, donors and those from the CNMI community who supported us financially and enabled us to get the gear we needed and cover the costs for these Micro Games, we would not be bringing back these gold medals if not for them. Also, thanks to Trench Tech who was extremely accommodating in giving us mat space to train while we still work to obtain wrestling mats and a home for NMI wrestling!”