{"id":356921,"date":"2021-12-02T06:01:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T20:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=356921"},"modified":"2021-12-02T06:01:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T20:01:02","slug":"nmsa-wants-marianas-cup-for-all-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nmsa-wants-marianas-cup-for-all-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"NMSA wants Marianas Cup for all sports"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Northern
Northern Marianas Sports Association president Jerry Tan wants an annual competition between the CNMI and Guam encompassing all sports federations under the NMSA umbrella. (MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Northern Marianas Sports Association wants a CNMI-Guam competition patterned after the Marianas Cup for all sports so that athletes can train year round.<\/p>\n

NMSA president Jerry Tan, speaking during a recent NMSA membership meeting, said the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association has been holding the Marianas Cup for years. The competition pits the national teams (senior and junior) of the CNMI against their counterparts from Guam. The Commonwealth gets to host it one year with Guam hosting it the next.<\/p>\n

He added that other sports federations like the Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association have had similar setups with Guam with the latter\u2019s clubs challenging local teams many years back.<\/p>\n

The impetus of a Marianas Cup across all sports, Tan said, was mulled even before the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled and then slowed down sports activities on both islands.<\/p>\n

It gained more traction lately after the Marshall Islands announced that it will be putting off the 2022 Micronesian Games set in Majuro to 2023 due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Tan said the Micronesian Games\u2019 postponement weighed on him a lot because sports like basketball, which is not part of the Pacific Mini Games next year, have been training since mid-year with the expectation of finally displaying their wares in Majuro.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did not have competition last year and nothing this year and if no Micronesian Games also next year. Three years without any regional games is not good. The [Northern Mariana Islands Basketball Association] called for a tryout a couple of months ago and they\u2019ve been training and it turns out they were training for nothing because of the postponement and that bothers me. So what are they training for?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Under the Marianas Cup concept, CNMI teams will challenge Guam teams every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to see if we can go for the Marianas Cup so all sports will be preparing to challenge their counterparts from Guam and this will be annually. One year, the CNMI will host and the next year, Guam,\u201d said Tan.<\/p>\n

So far, the NMSA president has floated four options on how the Marianas Cup would proceed. The first option would be Guam hosting as much as 18 sports. The second option is the CNMI will take the hosting duties. The third is the CNMI and Guam will split the sports with half taking place in the latter and the other half in the former. The fourth, which Tan concedes is the most doable, is individual sports will arrange their respective Marianas Cup events against their counterpart sports federations in Guam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking, if it was too much burden on the [Guam National Olympic Committee or NMSA] maybe Somia (NMIVA president Somia Quan) can just contact her counterpart in Guam and coordinate with the Guam volleyball association and do your own Marianas Cup and you could decide to either do it here or do it in Guam and the other sports can do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tan, however, assured that NMSA, as the umbrella sports body in the CNMI, will fully back the local sports federations if they do decide to push through with their own Marianas Cup events against Guam.<\/p>\n

\u201cNMSA will come in and throw the biggest support it can. One of them is the airfare to Guam and the hotel accommodations. You know what, we were prepared to send our athletes to Majuro so I said that to Guam, too \u2018money shouldn\u2019t be a problem because you were prepared to send athletes to Majuro\u2019 where it\u2019s a lot more costly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever the sports federations decide, the NMSA head hopes they just make it as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope this decision will be made sooner than later because I don\u2019t want the athletes to hear the bad news that there\u2019s a postponement of 12 months and stop training. Any of the options is OK for NMSA as long as we have competition\u2026 Good thing to have the Marianas Cup so everyone doesn\u2019t have to wait for Micronesian Games to come around. One thing I learned is athletes always feel that after they return from a regional event they don\u2019t have to train right away because there\u2019s nothing going in for another four years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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