Chance for athletes to make mark

 FROM a sports perspective, the next 12 months are going to be the busiest for Papua New Guinea athletes. 

Three events – two international and one national – will involve the country’s best sports men and women in way or another. 

The Commonwealth Games from July 23 to August 3, is easily the biggest of these three events. 

The PNG Games in November and the Pacific Games in July next year are the other two major sporting events. 

A 138-member contingent representing the country is in Glasgow, Scotland, preparing for the opening ceremony on Wednesday and the start of games. 

Naturally one would as­s­ume that the Commonwealth Games would provide a great opportunity for our elite athletes to test themselves against the world’s best before the PNG Games run and then onto the Pacific Games. 

But PNG sports administrators, those who are involved in managing Team PNG, have preferred to focus on the Commonwealth Games as a singular event, without the need to look further ahead. 

Team PNG chef de mission to the Commonwealth Games Emma Waiwai and her Pacific Games counter-part Richard Kassman said the Commonwealth Games are the sole focus of the 92 athletes and nothing else. 

“We’ve told them to focus on this one. We want them to stay focused and do their best and when they come back they can worry about preparing for 2015,” Waiwai said. 

Thoughts of the Pacific Games, and to a lesser extent the PNG Games, have been put on hold so that the team can put all its energies into competing in Glasgow. 

There is no doubt however that good performances in Scotland will definitely equate to great expectations on athletes for gold medals in Port Moresby next year. 

One such athlete, who will literally and figuratively have a weight to bear, is Ste­ven Kari. The 21-year-old weightlifting phenomenon is perhaps the only realistic medal hope for PNG. 

Such has been the form of the Hanuabada native over the past six months that he has already been pencilled in for gold at the Pacific Games in his 94-kilogram division. 

He is it seems without peer at the Pacific Games level, although Nauru lifters have always been strong in this sport. 

The next person to attract interest as a contender is swimming hero Ryan Pini. 

At 32, Pini may be a little long in the tooth for an elite level swimmer but he has won gold and silver at the last two games in Melbourne (2006) and Delhi (2010) and despite his advanced years experience will count. 

The 2015 Pacific Games will be his swansong but Pini is swimming in his last Commonwealth Games. 

The other top national athletes who are hoping for good performances are lifter, Dika Toua, who has a 2006 Commonwealth Games silver medal; sprinter Toea Wisil, who would be hoping to at least make the semi-finals of the women’s 100-metres again – the Jiwaka woman made it as far as the penultimate race in 2010 in India; and the national sevens side, which won the bowl in Delhi four years ago. 

The Commonwealth Games is indeed a springboard for our best to use heading into the Pacific Games, even though there is an 11 month gap between the two events. 

The achievements and performances by Team PNG in Glasgow will surely have some bearing on their Pacific Games expectations.

 But the Commonwealth games should be seen as a rare chance for PNG to make the world headlines. 

Kari, Pini, Wisil and Toua will be up against far better opposition given that this is a bigger event then the Pacific Games. 

A Commonwealth Games medal would probably be the pinnacle of their accomplishments. 

Pini and Toua have already tasted that kind of success, while Kari is on the verge of something special. 

The Pukpuks will be up against the best in the world bar none and a medal would be miraculous given the presence of the top eight best nations in the sevens world. 

Team PNG is as well-positioned as any of our past teams have been but these games will see the passing of the torch from one of our greatest athletes in Pini, to the next star in Kari.

We wish them all well.