BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
THE Northern Marina Pacific Mini Games 2022 is set to kick off tomorrow 17 June.
The 11th regional event will be held at Saipan, Tinian, and Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands from June 17th -25th, 2022.
The participating countries include Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis & Futuna, Cook Islands, and Kiribati, Australia.
This year’s Northern Marina Pacific Mini Games are hosted with the motto, “Rising Up To the Challenge’. The event will be a live stream via the Northern Mariana YouTube channel.
According to the Northern Marina Pacific Mini Games 2022 website the opening ceremony is set to kick off from 5:30 to 8:30 at Oleai Sports Complex Track off Beach Road.
A total of 20 Pacific Island States from the three Pacific Island races Polynesia, Micronesia, and the Melanesian.
Solomon Islands will participate in nine sports during this year’s Regional Games.
Raw Sport understand that Team Solomon has left the country on Tuesday 14th with a total of 123 athletes and officials for the two weeks events. They have the third-largest contingent with 123 after Fiji with 125 athletes and Northern Marinas with 135 athletes.
The arrangement was made possible through the support from Solomon Islands Government, NOCSI, Sol2023 XVII Pacific Games Committee – the National Hosting Authority, the Games Organizing Committee, and the Solomon Islands National Institute of Sports.
Previously an initial twelve sports were scheduled for the Games but this was reduced to six in 2019, following the impact of Typhoon Yutu, the program was later increased to nine sports with the inclusion of Va’a (outrigger canoeing), tennis, and weightlifting in 2021.
The nine sports are, Athletics which will be held from June 21st to 25, Badminton from 20th -25, Baseball from 16 to 24th, Beach volleyball from 20 to 24th, Golf from 21st to 24, Tennis from 16 to 25th, Triathlon from 20 to 22, Va’a 20 to 24 and Weight lifting 20 to 23.
