{"id":257592,"date":"2017-08-04T06:02:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T20:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=257592"},"modified":"2017-08-04T06:02:46","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T20:02:46","slug":"sapong-shoots-new-pbt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/sapong-shoots-new-pbt\/","title":{"rendered":"Sapong shoots for new PBT"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_257619\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-257619\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IAAF-pix-300x225.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-257619\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Guam\u2019s Regine Tugade, Nauru\u2019s Dysard Dageago, Palau\u2019s Gwynn Uehara, and the CNMI\u2019s Zarinae Sapong pose for a group photo after arriving at the London Olympic Stadium for this year\u2019s World Athletics Championships.  (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Zarinae Sapong is hoping to improve her personal best time when she competes in the women\u2019s 100-meter run on Saturday in the 16th International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships in London, United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>Sapong will be running in one of the seven preliminary heats starting at 11:45am (8:45pm Saipan time) at the London Olympic Stadium at Marshgate Lane. The IAAF athletics championships will be from Aug. 4 to 13.<\/p>\n<p>Sapong, the reigning Micronesian Athletics Championships sprint queen, left Saipan with her father and Northern Marianas Athletics secretary general Robin early this week. Improving her 13.35 seconds time in the 100m run when she won gold in the 2016 MAC.<\/p>\n<p>She also won the 200m sprint gold with a MAC record of 27.87 seconds, while also anchoring the CNMI women\u2019s 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams to bronze medals at Pohnpei State of the Federated States of Micronesia.<\/p>\n<p>She also posted a time of 13.64 in the 100m sprint in this year\u2019s Oceania Area Championship in Fiji and 28.47 in the 200m run.<\/p>\n<p>Sapong\u2019s times in the Pohnpei MAC was a huge improvement from the records she posted in the 2015 Oceania Athletics Association Area Championships in Cairns, Australia. She finished 13th in the 100m and 200m runs with times of 13.91 and 28.97 seconds each.<\/p>\n<p>Sapong is using the Worlds as a preparation for this year\u2019s Pacific Mini Games in Vanuatu and the 2018 MAC, which will be hosted by Saipan in June.<\/p>\n<p>All eyes will be on 2016 Rio Olympics champion Elaine Thompson of Jamaica, Tori Bowie of the United States, and the Netherlands\u2019 Dafne Schippers with the three sprinters expected to breeze past their opponents to enter the finals.<\/p>\n<p>Absent among the favorites is Jamaican and reigning Worlds sprint queen Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce as she skipped this year\u2019s edition due to pregnancy.<\/p>\n<p>Guam\u2019s Regine Tugade (women\u2019s 200m), Dysard Dageago of Nauru (men\u2019s 100m), Gwynn Uehara of Palau (men\u2019s 100m), and FSM\u2019s James Fiti Scott (men\u2019s 100m) are the other athletes from Micronesia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zarinae Sapong is hoping to improve her personal best time when she competes in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":257619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17837,17838,4366,1575],"class_list":["post-257592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-dysard-dageago","tag-london-olympic-stadium","tag-mac","tag-pbt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}