Federations set to face justification

NATIONAL Federations hoping to have their sport endorsed as part of Team PNG for next year’s Pacific Games in Apia, Samoa, will meet with the Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee’s justification committee from Friday, to Sunday.
The justification process for sports to attend the Pacific Games is long established with the PNGOC to ensure sports and their athletes are prepared and the final athletes and officials endorsed to be part of Team PNG are of an expected standard.
This first round of justification committee meetings related to the Games will also serve to endorse sports officials for the various sports on the programme.
There are a total of 27 sports on the Games programme. It is hoped Team PNG will be able to have athletes competing in all 27 sports however, with several national federations failing to submit any documentation to the PNGOC to justify their sport’s inclusion in Team PNG, the Justification Committee will be making some hard decisions this weekend on the possible omission of those sports.
National federations that failed to submit documentation to PNGOC by the deadline were boxing, football (soccer), judo, lawn bowls, powerlifting, league 9s, taekwondo and va’a (canoeing).
All other national federations on the Games programme that have submitted documentation have been notified of their respective times to meet with the JC.
Custification Committee chairman Michael Henao thanked the national federations that did comply with the stringent requirements while also calling on all sport administrators to be diligent with their work “because their failures will directly impact PNG athletes and risk medals for Team PNG.”
Henao said: “I want to reassure all stakeholders that the JC — a dedicated voluntary committee —will work hard to give PNG sports the best chance possible to make the Pacific Games.”
After this first round of JC meetings, national federations will be required to meet with JC twice more in the future. The next phase will be late this year to monitor progress of the athletes from sports endorsed to travel; with the final phase being for federations to justify their final team selections to the JC for endorsement next March.