Mini Games preparations encounter road blocks

With a little over five months before the start of the 2005 South Pacific Mini Games in Palau, the CNMI delegation is encountering financial problems associated with sending athletes to the quadrennial event.

Baseball, for instance, admitted during last week’s regular monthly Northern Marianas Amateur Sports Association general membership meeting that they were nowhere near the $12,000 needed to pay its airfare due by March 3.

“I know they [baseball representatives] made an agreement with you [NMASA] last month, promising they would turnover $12,000 by March 3. Right after that meeting, I told them there was no way we could do that,” said baseball national team coach Jess Wabol.

He, however, said that baseball is fundraising money at a fever-pitch level since they made that guarantee and are set to turnover $1,600 earned from selling hot lunches to NMASA. They have scheduled another hot lunch fundraiser on Feb. 19, according to Wabol.

Canoeing is also another sport that, so far, has yet to remit any money to cover airfare for its 13 paddlers and coaches.

Representative Isidro Olopai, however, told NMASA that training has gone on as scheduled and they have been holding qualifying events to identify the athletes they would be sending to the Mini Games.

Softball is in the same boat as baseball and canoeing, with Saipan Softball Association president Robert A. Guerrero needing to raise airfare for both the men’s and women’s teams—the most from any sport—by March 3 or pullout all together from the Mini Games.

Eligibility issues, meanwhile, is preventing the Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association from recruiting some of the better ping-pong players in the Commonwealth.

President Steve Lim said a handful of Tinian’s and Saipan’s table tennis veterans have not completed the requisite five-year residence in the CNMI to become eligible for the Mini Games.

Lim also said players have also been turned off by the lack of government financial support and are not that too enthusiastic about fund raising or even paying their own way to compete in Palau.

Barring any last-minute entry from Tinian, it looks like the CNMI will not be competing in weightlifting in Palau after hopeful Calvin Tagabuel pulled out from the Mini Games, citing a recurring injury.

Earlier, NMASA received overtures from Ed Temingiil of Tinian, saying he is keen in fielding a weightlifting team to Palau.

The two-man CNMI wrestling team for the Mini Games possibly may also be reduced to one after player/coach Joe Ocampo reported that teammate Slade Adelbai was injured in last month’s South Pacific Open Tournament in Guam.

Other than those six sports, the other half dozen sports associations sending athletes to Palau have reported minor to no problems with their current preparations for the Mini Games.

Swimming, for instance, added two more swimmers on its list of qualifiers when Saipan Swim Club coach Michael Stewart reported that Melissa Coleman and Nicole Calvo have joined early entrants brothers David and Dean Palacios, Nina Mosley, Minerva Cabrera, Juan Camacho, and Amanda Johnson.

Tennis also received good news last month when 2003 Suva South Pacific Mini Games veteran Todd Montgomery announced his availability for Palau.

“That makes our team a lot stronger. He is a potential medal contender. He’s up there and he’ll definitely be our No. 1 player,” said Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association vice president Jeff Race.

Northern Mariana Islands Triathlon Association president Stephan Samoyloff, in an email sent to NMASA, said that they are still going on with their competitions and are looking to qualify people through that process.

He also said NMITF is still looking at the possibility of recruiting two athletes from swimming to make up the women’s team.

Beach volleyball and athletics are also in the thick of their preparations. Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association secretary Steve Nguyen reported his association is organizing alternate men’s and women’s qualifiers every week

Northern Marianas Islands Track and Field Federation president Kurt Barnes, meanwhile said training has been going at an ideal pace and athletics will announce the final makeup of their three-man team soon.