{"id":303804,"date":"2019-07-17T06:02:12","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T20:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=303804"},"modified":"2019-07-17T06:02:12","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T20:02:12","slug":"sapong-completes-first-race-in-samoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/sapong-completes-first-race-in-samoa\/","title":{"rendered":"Sapong completes first race in Samoa"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_303805\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-303805\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/pacific-athleticpix.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-303805\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">CNMI\u2019s Zarinae Sapong is introduced at the starting line during the qualifying run for the 100m race in the XVI Pacific Games yesterday at the Apia Park Stadium. (Lydia Tan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sprinter Zarinae Sapong competed in the 100m qualifying race in the XVI Pacific Games yesterday at the Apia Park Stadium\u2019s track oval and finished ahead of seven runners.<\/p>\n<p>Sapong was on Heat 2 of the qualifier and timed in at 13.02 seconds, just a few seconds shy of her personal best (12.97 seconds). She was fifth on her heat and No. 12 overall, posting a better time against  Guam\u2019s Richelle Tugade (13.13 seconds), the Solomon Islands\u2019 Jovita Arunia (13.37), Samoa\u2019s Taufagalupe Hunt (13.41), the Federated States of Micronesia\u2019s Darla Jonah (13.60), Kiribati\u2019s Ruta Tooma (13.74), and Samoa\u2019s Mileta Tino (13.81) and Danielle Tanielu (13.87).<\/p>\n<p>Papua New Guinea\u2019s Toea Wisil recorded the fastest qualifying time with her 11.50 seconds and was joined in the gold medal race by compatriots Adrine Monagi (12.28) and Leonie Beu (11.95), Tonga\u2019s Taina Halasima (12.08), Fiji\u2019s Younis Bese (12.21) and Heleina Young (11.97), New Caledonia\u2019s Esther Wejieme (12.07), and Guam\u2019s Regine Tugade (12.00). The gold medal race was scheduled yesterday evening and results were unavailable at press time.<\/p>\n<p>With Sapong done with the 100m run, she has only one event left and will be racing in the 200m qualifying heat tomorrow. There are 19 runners entered in the 200m event, including Wisil, the oldest in the field at 31 years old, and is also the favorite.<\/p>\n<p>In the men\u2019s 200m qualifying runs, the CNMI\u2019s Beo Ngirchongor and Traven Quitugua will be battling 29 other runners for the semis slots (16). The semis and finals runs will take place tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Also set for Thursday is the javelin where Lia Rangamar will be representing the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the athletics competition will conclude this Saturday with Tania Tan closing out for the CNMI, as she races in the half marathon. Tan will be going up against the Solomon Islands\u2019 Dianah Matekali and Sharon Firisua, Vanuatu\u2019s Margaret Kuras, and PNG\u2019s Poro Gahekave. Gahekave and Matekali won the gold and bronze, respectively, in the 5,000m run last Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sprinter Zarinae Sapong competed in the 100m qualifying race in the XVI Pacific Games yesterday&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":303805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303804","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=303804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}