{"id":387278,"date":"2023-03-15T06:04:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T20:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=387278"},"modified":"2023-03-15T06:04:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T20:04:21","slug":"moore-confident-pickleball-will-be-an-olympic-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/moore-confident-pickleball-will-be-an-olympic-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"Moore confident pickleball will be an Olympic sport"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Daniel Moore, second from left, poses with Pickleball Federation of the Northern Mariana Islands president Nelson Krum, left, and pickleball players from Isla Montessori Saipan during a break in his two-day pickleball clinic last week at the American Memorial Park. (MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Daniel Moore, the world\u2019s No. 11 pickleball player, said he\u2019s confident that the fastest-growing sport will eventually become an Olympic sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSooner rather than later, pickleball will be an Olympic sport. There\u2019s already a professional league in the U.S. Maybe that will go to Asia and the rest of the world and it\u2019ll eventually be a global professional sport,\u201d he said during his recent visit to Saipan where he conducted a two-day clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The nine-time U.S. national pickleball champion also said he particularly wants the sport to grow exponentially in China, so it can speed up pickleball\u2019s entry to the Olympics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the one that I would really like to see playing a lot is China because it\u2019s so big. If the government decides that they want to invest in pickleball, I think immediately they\u2019ll have some of the best players in the world, just by population, and they also have academies. So I think if China gets involved in the sport, it\u2019ll change the dynamic,\u201d said Moore, who is now based in Japan and operates Pickleball Trips, a company taking pickleball players to world-class destinations around the world.<\/p>\n

The Pickleball Federation of the Northern Mariana Islands, which invited Moore to the island, was established just a couple of years ago and already boasts more than 150 members.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s president, Nelson Krum, earlier said in order for the International Olympic Committee to consider pickleball as a sport in the quadrennial event, it should be played in 75 countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group last year was admitted as an associate member of the\u00a0 International Federation of Pickleball.<\/p>\n

Group vice president Don Dunlop, meanwhile, thanked Moore for his two-day clinic on Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just the nicest guy and I see why the Japanese culture just loves him so much. He\u2019s so kind and he\u2019s very respectful, and he\u2019s one of the top players in the world and beat Ben Johnson and Matt Ride back in 2015 and 2016. So he\u2019s bringing that success to us. We\u2019re so fortunate to have had Daniel Moore here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Moore, the world\u2019s No. 11 pickleball player, said he\u2019s confident that the fastest-growing sport…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":387256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387278","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\/387278","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}