{"id":303447,"date":"2019-07-15T06:04:06","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T20:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=303447"},"modified":"2019-07-15T06:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T20:04:06","slug":"2025-mini-games-in-palau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/2025-mini-games-in-palau\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 Mini Games in Palau"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_303448\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-303448\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Mini-Games-Palau-pix.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-303448\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Apia Park Stadium\u2019s track facility will be busy starting today as the athletics competition in the XVI Pacific Games kicks off. (Lydia Tan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Palau will be hosting the 2025 Pacific Mini Games.<\/p>\n<p>The island\u2019s selection was made during the Pacific Games Council general assembly at the Sheraton Aggie Grey\u2019s in Samoa yesterday. Palau won over American Samoa, whose bid was considered non-compliant to the PGC\u2019s statutes and regulations.  American Samoa and Niue, a couple of years ago, had also submitted bids to host the 2025 event and the winner was originally set to be picked last year, but the council deferred the decision due to the same reason (non-compliant), opening the door for Palau to bring the Games back to its soil.<\/p>\n<p>The last time Palau hosted the Pacific Mini Games was in 2005 with New Caledonia winning the overall championship with its 56-29-25 gold-silver-bronze medal tally from 12 sports. Fiji (23-21-16) and Nauru (18 gold medals) rounded out the Top 3.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand were named associate members of the council during yesterday\u2019s meeting, while New Caledonia\u2019s Roger Kaddour became a life member of the PGC.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Athletics competition starts<\/strong><br \/>\nThe medal rich athletics competition will kick off today with Beo Ngirchongor and Traven Quitugua the first ones to see action for the CNMI at the Apia Stadium\u2019s track oval.<\/p>\n<p>Quitugua is on Heat 3 of the qualifying races for the 100m run. He will be up against  Kiribati\u2019s Tirioro Willie, Nauru\u2019s Jonah Harris, Samoas Jeremy Doson, Tonga\u2019s Fohe Michael Folau, the Federated States of Micronesia\u2019s Scott Fiti, and the Solomon Islands\u2019s Kevin Pio.<\/p>\n<p>Ngirchongor is also entered in the 100m run and is on Heat 1 along with the Solomon Islands\u2019 Paul Ma\u2019Unikani, Tonga\u2019s Ronald Fatofili, Fiji\u2019s Ratu Tabakaucoro, Papua New Guinea\u2019s Michael Penny, the Cook Islands\u2019 Tikove Piira, and Guam\u2019s John Paul Dimalanta.<\/p>\n<p>In the women\u2019s 5,000m run, Tania Tan will race against PNG\u2019s Mary Tenge, Monica Kalua, and Poro Gahekave, Vanuatu\u2019s Margarte Kuras, Sharon Firifua and Dianah Matekali, and Guam\u2019s Noshista Benavente.<\/p>\n<p>Zarinae Sapong and Lia Rangamar are the two other CNMI bets competing in athletics with the former joining the qualifier in the 100m tomorrow and the latter doing the javelin throw on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Palau will be hosting the 2025 Pacific Mini Games. The island\u2019s selection was made during&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":303448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[319],"class_list":["post-303447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-palau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303447","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}