New Caledonia reaching 50-gold medal mark

New Caledonia is dominating everyone and is seemingly pulling away from the rest of the pack in the medal count of the 2005 Palau South Pacific Games.

The South Pacific delegation increased their total haul to a whopping 49 medals after adding another 17 medals Wednesday, which saw the team strike gold nine times, earn five silver, and net three bronze.

Of the 17 medals, 15 came courtesy of the delegation’s powerhouse swim team, which accounted for eight of the nine gold earned on the day.

Holding the No. 2 spot is Nauru, who boasts of 15 medals—all gold.

Papua New Guinea added 10 more to their medal count and now has 21 medals, earning two gold, six silver, and two bronze, while Fiji doubled up its gold total from four to eight and also netted another three silver to give their delegation a total of 22 medals.

The Federated States of Micronesia made a huge jump, moving up the chart to fifth place by taking home four gold medals and a silver to account for all their medals.

Host Palau failed to medal yesterday and remained with four gold and four bronze, while Tonga had the same fate and sits with seven medals, three of them being gold.

CNMI follows at the No. 7 spot after its swimmers did their delegation proud by adding another five medals to their tally, three being silver and two bronze. With that, the NMI now sports a count of a gold, eight silver, and five bronze.

Guam follows with a gold, two silver, and seven bronze, while Solomon Islands is right behind with six medals, Samoa with five, Wallis & Futuna three, Cook Islands three, Vanuatu one, Nuie with three, and Tuvalu with two.

Meanwhile, NMI chef de mission Mike White expressed his satisfaction with the support members of the delegation are giving each other.

“I’m very happy with the fact that we’re all supporting the other sports here,” he said. “This is a team…its Team CNMI not just a baseball team, or canoing, or softball that’s here. Everybody needs to support everybody else and I’m glad that they’re doing that.”

White said he does run into many of the members, who make their way to the baseball field, softball field, tennis courts, and track and field area, among others, to support the teams.

“They’re supporting their brothers and sisters on Team CNMI and that’s a good thing,” he said.