{"id":281893,"date":"2018-08-09T06:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T20:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=281893"},"modified":"2018-08-09T06:00:04","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T20:00:04","slug":"gross-hopes-micro-games-would-motivate-nmi-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/gross-hopes-micro-games-would-motivate-nmi-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Gross hopes Micro Games would motivate NMI athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_281894\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-281894\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Nick-Gross-mug.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"641\" class=\"size-full wp-image-281894\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-281894\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gross<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Regardless of the overall medal tally, Nick Gross believes the CNMI\u2019s recent participation in the two-week Micronesian Games in Yap captures the increasing level of sports skills in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Gross, who is the Public School System\u2019s athletic director, also hopes the CNMI\u2019s participation in the Micro Games would \u201creignite that fire\u201d within Saipan athletes for the 2021 Pacific Mini Games that will be held on Saipan and the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking at Tuesday\u2019s meeting of the Rotary Club of Saipan at the Hyatt Regency Saipan, Gross recounted the CNMI\u2019s successful participation in the Micro Games, noting the emergence of competitiveness in sports in the CNMI and its implication for CNMI athletes in future islandwide sports events.<\/p>\n<p>Gross acknowledged Yap\u2019s competence to stage the huge competition, \u201cIt was a true stress test on their infrastructure and their ability to put on such as big event. Kudos to Yap and their delegation,\u201d said Gross. <\/p>\n<p>At the Micro Games, Gross competed in javelin, shot put, and indoor volleyball, vying against teams representing the Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Guam, Yap, Nauru, Chuuk, and Kosrae. He placed third in the javelin section and earned fourth place in shot put. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe level of playing is beyond what we are accustomed to seeing here on island and it was incredible to be part of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He believes it was a lesson learned for CNMI athletes and hopes it will motivate them to do well at the upcoming Pacific Mini Games on Saipan and Pacific Games in Samoa. <\/p>\n<p>He wishes for athletes and sports programs to start preparing now for a chance for the CNMI community to shine and stand out. This will also be a chance for Saipan to further improve its sports infrastructure.  <\/p>\n<p>Rotary president Greg Borja is already looking forward to the Pacific Mini Games. \u201cIt\u2019s [going to be] an experience for our athletes. It will take a lot in terms of infrastructure. Like Nick said, about 1,300 to 1,500 athletes who will potentially be coming to our island from all around the Pacific,\u201d said Borja.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Regardless of the overall medal tally, Nick Gross believes the CNMI\u2019s recent participation in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":281894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,845,1654,2820],"class_list":["post-281893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-micro-games","tag-pacific-games","tag-pacific-mini-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281893","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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}