However, the young CNMI girl athlete had to pull out from the long jump due to an injured heel.
Despite the jet log they tried to shake off after a long journey over the Pacific, the CNMI athletes were doing a great job competing in the U18 among the other Pacific Islanders, according to coach, Elias Rangamar who noted that Reylynn Sapong is just 15 and Ryan Ichihara is 16.
Lia, broke her own CNMI Junior record in javelin as she threw 32.90 meters. With this, she nearly broke the national record of 34.68 held by Emy Quitugua.
The CNMI young javelin thrower placed seventh among the nine other athletes who are all much taller and bigger that her.
Lia beat the competitors from Australia and Tahiti.
She however, had to pull out from long jump due to an injury in her heel.
Rangamar said he did not want to jeopardize Lia’s chances in the upcoming Micro Games.
Sapong, according to Rangamar ran a great first leg in 800-meter run with a time of 1:118. She however, gased out in the second leg of the event finishing at 3:03. Her previous best was 3:00.
Rangamar attributed this to their long flight.
Reylynn came in at 1:12 in the 400-meter, just four seconds short of her previous best which was 1:08.
Unlike the Australian athletes who raced in their own respective age groups, Sapong and Ichihara competed in the U18 where their competitors are older.
But Rangamar see this as a great opportunity for CNMI’s track program.
“For us to just be allowed to compete with the best junior track and field athletes in the state of Australia is just an awesome and delightful experience, especially for our athletes,” Rangamar said as he thanks Athletics Australia for inviting the CNMI athletes to the event.
“I know this is probably just an experiment where in the next meet, we’ll be allowed to put our athletes in age groups.
This is a great window of opportunity for our youth athletics program to develop by competing against the best youth athletes in Australia,” he said adding that Sapong, Lia and Ichihara are running and competing “at a very high level.”
Ichihara is competing in the 200-meter and finishing up with the 100-meter as of yesterday morning.
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