Sport Briefs
Sport Briefs
New Caledonia Beats Fiji for Gold
Australia is to basketball in the South Pacific as Guam is in the north: the team to beat. So when not one, but two teams did just that to Australia at the 5th Oceania Basketball Tournament in Fiji in July, it showed that basketball in the islands has come of age. New Caledonia went home with the gold after narrowly defeating Fiji in the championship game 81-80. Australia won bronze by defeating New Zealand.
Oceania Basketball Confederation development officer Jon Hoyle said after the Fiji tourney that New Caledonia’s and Fiji’s success in beating Australia to go into the championship game was a testament to the investment that those islands have made in basketball in the past six years.
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On the women’s side, Australia won gold over second place Tahiti, while Fiji took third place, edging out New Caledonia by one point. Overall, 20 men’s and women’s teams competed, making it the biggest Oceania tournament on record.
Teenager Smashes ‘All-Mike’ Billfish Record
Marshall Islands teenager Kyle Aliven did it again. After setting an all-time Marshalls Billfish Club record by catching a whopping 719-pound marlin in the billfish club’s annual July fishing tournament, he broke the Mobil All-Micronesia marlin record with a 562-pounder in early September in Majuro. Aliven, a 13-year-old, smashed Saipan angler Tony Pangelinan’s two-year-old marlin record of 420 pounds and won $5,000.
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The ninth annual Mobil “All Mike” tourney had 11 teams competing from Pohnpei, Chuuk, Guam (Mobil), the Marshall Islands, Australia and New Zealand.
Amazing even the most seasoned anglers, almost all the 11 marlins caught were in the 300-500 pound range.
“If you had told me before the tournament that I’d catch a 300-pound marlin and place 9th, I’d have told you that you were crazy,” Mobil Oil’s Scott Shular said at the awards banquet. The Kiwis, Pohnpeians and other anglers received encouragement from Aloha Airlines, Continental and Outrigger Marshall Islands Resort to return next year with complimentary tickets and rooms.
Yap Shines at
FSM Games
Yap did more than just win the most medals at the 3rd FSM Games it hosted. It showed that a small island could put on a successful major regional competition. About 800 athletes came to Yap at the end of July for competitions in a dozen different sports, including regular Olympic events such as basketball, track and field, and volleyball, and a few — such as Micronesia All-Around, involving coconut tree climbing and husking, and spear throwing — unique to the islands. Yap won 94 medals, including 38 gold, to lead the way. Pohnpei was second with 84, Kosrae third with 74 and Chuuk fourth with 47.
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An outstanding feature of the event was the computer and Internet technology used to produce immediate results and photos, and broadcast them, via e-mail, to media around the region. YapSEED, the state’s Education Department, organized the technology, involving dozens of high school students in recording statistics and transmitting results of the event, demonstrating that with the Internet an island like Yap is isolated no more.
Photo: Giff Johnson and FSM Games Organizing Committee
