Tagaman preparations push ahead

With little more than a month and a half remaining until the start of the 16th Annual Tagaman Triathlon, organizers are continuing their efforts to host what they hope to be the best event in the history of the local multi-sport happening when members of several organizations gathered to discuss their progress.

Nary a seat was unoccupied at a meeting of race officials and sponsors in the conference room of the Marianas Visitors Authority in San Jose on Tuesday afternoon, and each attendee sounded off with positive reports with regards to their findings.

Taga Inc. vice president Wolf Mojica announced that the organization’s president Bill Sakovich will be returning to Saipan early next month and will remain until the completion of the race. He relayed that Sakovich has already made the necessary arrangements to ensure that the swim caps and numbers will arrive on time, and that the website was up to date.

Mojica said the event’s website has been updated by Angil Design, and that he was pleased with the way things were shaping up.

“It looks like everything is going quite smoothly,” said Mojica.

MVA representative Frank Tudela concurred the status of the site, and said that he has already been receiving a number of online registration forms from both local entrants and international competitors.

While the Tagaman course will take runners and cyclists through what will be a very congested American Memorial Park, organizers were planning to rally approximately 40 volunteers to help the Department of Public Safety with crowd and traffic control.

In prior discussion, DPS had expressed the need for additional manpower to aid their efforts directing traffic during the race, but during Tuesday’s meeting, they offered the possibility of calling upon the young men and women in their approximately 60-member Explorer programs to fill the gap.

The addition of the Explorers will enable the athletes to travel the course free from outside interference. Now the organizers are devising a strategy to disperse the new hands throughout the course, as most of them are high school students.

Another issue on the table was adequate communication, but event officials received a green light from volunteer communication official, Jun Mercado.

In addition to being able to register at the MVA headquarters, the website has been updated to allow participants to sign up on-line. The new course map is also available by logging on to www.tagaman.com.

Organizers will follow up on all travel arrangements, prize acquisitions, and recruitment of professional athletes when they return to the MVA conference room next Tuesday, Mar. 8, at 1:30pm.