Bougainville team eyeing top spot

Normal, Sports
Source:

The National, Wednesday 22nd August, 2012

TEAM Autonomous Bougainville has been tasked to win in 60 gold medals in order to secure the top spot in the Kokopo Games.
 The Autonomous Region of Bougainville government this week announced that it would send a team to the 5th PNG National Games in Kokopo, East New Britain in November with the goal of winning the national games.
In a brief to the ARB government Sports Minister, Bougainville Games Coordinator Robert Semoso announced that the Bougainville contingent would be officially known as the “Team Autonomous Bougainville”.
National Capital District, Eastern Highlands and Morobe remain the favourites along with hosts ENB to rake in the most medals.
Fund-raising has begun to finance up to 500 athletes and officials to Kokopo.
The side will compete in 18 codes.
Along with the inclusion of three new codes: power lifting, weightlifting and karate, other codes include athletics, netball, basketball, rugby league 9s, bodybuilding, rugby union 7s, boxing, soccer, taekwondo, darts, softball, touch, kickboxing, Paralympics and volleyball.
The Autonomous Bougainville Sports Foundation with the division of community development are optimistic of preparing a competitive team.
However, preparations are behind schedule by three months due to financial constraints but the organising committee is working hard to get the team to the games.
Semoso said ARB government has made a commitment of K500,000 kina to assist the contingent; however, that funding has not been honoured as yet.
The business community in Bougainville has been urged to support the team in its fund-raising drive. Semoso thanked the business houses that had contributed towards assisting the contingent and appealed to others to do the same.
The four national leaders of the PNG National Parliament have also been approached to assist as well.