Pac Sports
Pac Sports
Pac Sports
Netball Champs Draw Suits Pacific Teams
Netball action between Samoa and PNG at the 2003 South Pacific Games in Suva. PHOTO: SPORTINGPULSE
The draw for the 2007 World Netball Championships this November has a favorable outcome for both Fiji and the Cook Islands. Both island nations have been drawn in Group C and will likely fight it out with Singapore for a place in the quarterfinals with third ranked seeds Jamaica almost certain to top the group. Samoa, however, have their work cut out for them with past world champions Trinidad & Tobago blocking their path in Group B which the current world number two Australia is all but guaranteed of winning.
The good news though is that the Pacific nations have avoided being pooled with current world champs New Zealand.
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“Playing Samoa will be good for us because they play very much in the New Zealand style,” Plummer said. “We had a good game against them in the Commonwealth Games.”
The World Champs draw was made by International Netball Federation President Molly Rhone and Sara Lunam, chairman of the 2007 World Netball Championships in Auckland, which is hosting the tournament after it was moved from Fiji following the military coup in late 2006.
Fiji qualified for the tournament by default as the original host country
Fiji and the Cook Islands will get a chance to test each other prior to the champs at the Pacific Games in Apia starting on August 25. Despite Samoa’s higher international ranking, Fiji and the Cook Islands are firm favorites for the games gold because Samoa will be unable to field their overseas players who make up more than 80 percent of their national team. The Fijian and Cooks squads have a strong nucleus of locally based players and this will serve them well in Apia, as it will for Papua New Guinea. Even Niue and Tokelau are likely to field strong teams with special dispensation given to these smaller island protectorates to call upon their New Zealand based players.
Heavy Lifting
World Cup Event Handed To Samoa
While the prospect of mega-sized facilities becoming “white elephants” after the upcoming Pacific Games has struck fear in many Samoans, there was some good news in May. The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has rewarded Samoa for its impressive hosting of last year’s Commonwealth & Oceania Champs by awarding the island nation a World Cup event. Samoa had already been awarded the right to host the Commonwealth & Oceania Champs again later this year but this now has been upgraded.
Oceania Weightlifting Federation (OWF) General Secretary Paul Coffa has confirmed the IWF World Cup will be held in Apia later this year from November 25 to December 1. The venue will be the 4,000-seater gymnasium built in early 2006. The venue was packed out for last year’s Commonwealth & Oceania Champs, surprising visiting IWF officials including its President Tamas Ajan.
Hosting a World Cup event is a major coup for Pacific weightlifting as the event doubles as an Olympic qualifier for the Beijing Games next year. Having it in Apia where they live and train will mean less pressure on the region’s top lifters who have had to endure hostile environments competing overseas trying to qualify in the past.
Coffa says hosting the IWF World Cup will be huge for Samoa post-Games with the economic spin-offs likely to exceed even last year’s achievements when the event was beamed to millions around the world, including China.
Should regional lifters miss out in Apia, they get another chance at next year’s Oceania Championships in Auckland being held from March 26 to 30.
The OWF moved its main training facility twice since the 1990s from Nauru to Fiji, and then to Samoa. But the shift to Apia has seen them blessed with a venue superior to any other in the region, including Australia and New Zealand. And the results have shown, both in terms of international recognition and with the region’s growing list of world-class lifters.
Depleted Micronesian Teams Head For Apia
Logistics and the high price of airfares has severely reduced the size of the Micronesian teams heading for the Pacific Games in Apia in August.
The Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) is sending just 14 athletes in athletics, beach volleyball, and tennis. They are all considered medal contenders and got first priority over other sports.
Lack of funding has also been blamed with Mark Rabago of the Saipan Tribune suggesting “any sponsorship money the business sector was willing to dole out has already been tapped a year ago in Saipan’s hosting of the Micronesian Games; and the (commonwealth) government—after years of subsidizing trips to the Micro Games and SPG—has finally said ‘no’ to a last-minute “bailout.”
The news of the smaller team has disappointed many locals given that CNMI did well at the last major regional games, the South Pacific Mini Games held in Palau two years ago. The commonwealth won 23 medals, including four gold and
finished inside the top 10 countries on the overall medal tally.
Team Guam is also depleted after a rethink by sports boss Ricardo Blas. Guam originally intended to send 200 athletes but the number going now is near half that. Funding was one reason, but Blas’ war of words with games officials over the readiness of Samoa to host the games was conveniently used as another excuse not to send a full strength team. Thankfully, a diplomatic mission made by Samoa’s National Olympic Committee president, Vui Tapasu Leung Wai, to Guam in April helped calm down the situation and a potential pullout by Guam.
Baseball is one sport the Micronesian nations are expected to dominate. However, international regulations have taken the gold medal favorites Guam out of the running. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is now the favorite, although 2003 silver medalist American Samoa could gate crash the Micronesians.
The games commence on August 25 with the closing ceremony slated for September 8.
