{"id":383676,"date":"2023-01-19T06:02:39","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T20:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=383676"},"modified":"2023-01-19T06:02:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T20:02:39","slug":"flying-colors-for-cnmi-vaa-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/flying-colors-for-cnmi-vaa-in-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying colors for CNMI va\u2019a in 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Some members of the CNMI Va\u2019a Women\u2019s National Team pose for a photo during the Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games 2022 last June. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO\u2002)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Exceptional work out in the crystal clear waters of the Philippine Sea for CNMI paddlers in 2022 made the Northern Marianas National Paddle Sports Federation president Justin Andrew rate the year a perfect 10\/10.<\/p>\n

According to Andrew, the va\u2019a community successfully organized and conducted the Public School System-NMNPSF Interscholastic Outrigger Race program, performed well during the Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games 2022 last June, and performed extremely well during the 22nd Micronesia Cup Canoe Race in Palau last October.<\/p>\n

The highlight of the year definitely was the \u201cMen\u2019s and women\u2019s Va\u2019a National Teams performance during the [Pacific] Mini Games, most especially to our women\u2019s crew for getting up to the podium,\u201d said Andrew.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of our va\u2019a athletes are new to the sport and have not performed at big regional and international events, but they sacrificed a lot and trained hard for one year and competed against the best va\u2019a paddling athletes in the Pacific region\u2014even competed against Tahiti where the sport of outrigger paddling is their national sport,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

During the Pacific Mini Games last June, both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s CNMI National Outrigger Team paddled against the world\u2019s best Tahiti, New Caledonia, and Wallis & Futuna. Even with going up against the big guns, the NMI women\u2019s V12 bagged a podium third place finish after Papua New Guinea was disqualified from the race due to a start fault and for finishing outside their designated lane.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Micronesia Cup, the Marianas Outrigger Club took home one gold in the women\u2019s 1,500m sprint; four silver in the women and men\u2019s 500m sprint and men\u2019s 1,500m sprint, and one in the 10-mile distance race; and one bronze medal in the women\u2019s eight-mile distance race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the same event, the Saipan Paddling Club\u2019s 16-year-old junior paddler placed fourth out of eight men in the V1 500m sprint, while both SPC\u2019s men\u2019s V6 teams in the 500m and 1,500m also placed fourth in the finals out of seven teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked what\u2019s next for the NMNPSF after a productive and successful year, Andrew said \u201cthe NMNPSF intends to hold more competitions in 2023 as well as help develop the sports by increasing its membership to include jr. paddlers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThe NMNPSF also plans to promote a healthy lifestyle via its outrigger programs with its member clubs aimed at those that do not want to train to compete but prefer to paddle as an exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew then said, \u201cIt has been an amazing 2022 and we look forward to many exciting things in 2023. The NMNPSF wants to sincerely thank its member clubs for keeping the sport alive and growing\u2014we also want to thank the many supporters from friends to families who tirelessly and very generously support our va\u2019a programs and lastly, want to reach to and to encourage many more to come out and try the sport\u2014join any of the clubs and just give it a try.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exceptional work out in the crystal clear waters of the Philippine Sea for CNMI paddlers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":383662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-383676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383676","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\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}