With another successful coaching mission under his belt, Northern Marianas Track and Field Federation developmental coach Elias Rangamar said that his recent trip with the latest reincarnation of the CNMI track and field team to Australia for the Oceania Open and Under 18 Area Championships was at the top of his list.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the most relaxing trip that I have made with any of the teams because they had some of the experienced guys with them, and they came more prepared than the teams have in the past. Jack [Kabiriel] and Tony [Ichiuo] helped to shoulder the load with their veteran leadership by getting the younger athletes prepared, relaxed, and ready for the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, Rangamar said that he was satisfied with the results, and noted that he was especially proud of the team\u2019s efforts because they only had three months to train. He said that some of the international athletes are returning home for the first time in last year because they have been training and competing in preparations for these games. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t win any medals this time out, but I was very impressed by the quality of their results. We had Marcan [Aldan] reach 18 seconds in the 5,000-meter race, Jeremy [Winkfield] was the first athlete from the CNMI to break 50 metes with the javelin, and our sprinters were right in the middle of the pack\u2014they used to finish at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rangamar said that one of the sprinters was actually in the front of the pack, as Ichiuo was in third place in the final moments of the 200m sprint. Unfortunately he came down with the flu the night before, and didn\u2019t have the energy to finish in medal contention.<\/p>\n
While he didn\u2019t place in the 100m sprint either, Rangamar said that Ichiuo was running like the wind in his swiftest performance to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s still the fastest that he\u2019s run when electronically timed\u2014even since his younger days. If we would have hand timed it, it would have been like 11.1 or 11.2. All we did before hand was change his workout a little, but I think he has benefited from training on the new track.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just a few days after getting back to the island, Rangamar said that he is having difficulties trying to get the athletes to relax and rest up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them to take the week off, but they are so excited. They just want to get going with practice again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting out to the track isn\u2019t all that difficult for the athletes to do, as all of them hail from Marianas High School\u2014which is right next door to the state-of-the-art Oleai facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis just solidifies MHS as the team to beat in track and field. I think it could have something to do with them having the track right next door, but it should give the kids at the other schools something to shoot for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The track stars will have plenty of time to rest up and train for the next item in the NMITFF agenda, and with a little luck, the track and field facility in Oleai will be host to its first international competition next April. <\/p>\n
According to Rangamar, a couple of teams from Guam are interested in participating in the All Schools competition next spring, and the NMITFF may hold the games in conjunction with the 2nd Annual Micro Cup.<\/p>\n
Rangamar hopes that by hosting the Micro Cup next year that Saipan will have the opportunity to welcome larger events to the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to host a lot of international competitions at the track. They\u2019ll be judging us by how we do during the Micro Cup, and they\u2019ll give us the bigger one\u2019s if we do well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cup was supposed to be held on Saipan last year, but was moved to Palau because the Oleai facility was not ready for action. Rangamar said that in order for the CNMI to be able to host the teams from Palau, Guam, the Marshall Islands, Chuuk, Phonpei, Napu, Kimbati, and Yap, the organization will need a light from above and some community assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf support comes in from the community and from the sponsors, and we can get the lights installed by then, we\u2019ll have a decent shot at the April target date.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With another successful coaching mission under his belt, Northern Marianas Track and Field Federation developmental coach Elias Rangamar said that his recent trip with the latest reincarnation of the CNMI track and field team to Australia for the Oceania Open and Under 18 Area Championships was at the top of his list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86663","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}