{"id":370791,"date":"2022-06-20T06:01:46","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T20:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=370791"},"modified":"2022-06-20T06:01:46","modified_gmt":"2022-06-19T20:01:46","slug":"coach-sees-games-as-opportunity-to-further-promote-badminton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/coach-sees-games-as-opportunity-to-further-promote-badminton\/","title":{"rendered":"Coach sees Games as opportunity to further promote badminton"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From left, CNMI National Badminton Team captain Nate Guerrero, assistant coaches Patricia Surima and Paolo Quidato, and head coach James Digno pose inside the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium, the venue for the Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games 2022.(ANGEL LI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winning a medal or two may be a daunting task with powerhouse badminton players from Tahiti and New Caledonia entered in the Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games 2022, but CNMI national badminton coach James Digno said his youthful squad is up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure we can win, if not gold, silver at least,\u201d he said, adding that he expects to have a very high level of matches since it\u2019s the first Mini Games badminton competition held in the CNMI.<\/p>\n

More than a podium finish, Digno also wants his players to represent the CNMI and badminton as best they could as ambassadors of the sport. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal for this Mini Games is to hopefully spread the sport of badminton because it\u2019s a very fun game contrary to what a lot of people say about badminton. I hope to bring the motivation and hype to the sport itself and to make people get interested in the sport. We\u2019re always looking for players.\u201d <\/p>\n

Last week also saw the team finally have their first practice sessions at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium that will serve them well as the badminton competition in the Games starts today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe practices have been OK, but not ideal but it\u2019s good enough because the Ada Gym was under renovation when we needed to practice. We used to practice at the TSL Multi-Purpose Gymnasium but they couldn\u2019t really fully practice there because the ceilings are lower and the birdie would always hit the ceiling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite their limited time at the Games\u2019 venue, Digno is glad that the national team is preparing for the Games with a full head of steam.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team has been working really hard and they always show up to practice. I couldn\u2019t ask for more.\u201d <\/p>\n

Assisting Digno on the team are Paulo Jerome N. Quidato and Patricia Surima with Nathan Guerrero serving as team captain.<\/p>\n

For Guerrero, he wants the CNMI to finally win a medal in the sport as doing so would open doors for a lot of them in the future. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope everybody comes and support every sport and all the NMI athletes during the Games. Come and watch, come and cheer. Come on and come all. We\u2019d love to see everybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aside from Guerrero, who represented the islands in the Samoa Pacific Games in 2019, also in the men\u2019s team are fellow Pacific Games veterans Andreau Galvez, Jordan Pangilinan, and siblings Ezekiel and Daniel Macario, and Leonard Isaiah Manuel.<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s side, Janelle Pangilinan will suit up for the national team anew after debuting in the Pacific Games three years ago. She will have Jenine Savellano, Jeanelyn Cardinio, Windy Ann Fernandez, and sisters Michaella and Mikamaika Serrano as teammates. (Angel Li)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winning a medal or two may be a daunting task with powerhouse badminton players from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":370788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370791","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\/370791","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=370791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}