Jason Tarkong and Pipit Ball
JASON Tarkong and Pipit Ball have been selected to compete in the IVF Va’a World Elite and Club Sprint Championship 2024 in Hilo, Hawaii on Aug. 13-24.
The veteran athletes will represent the Marianas Outrigger Club and the Northern Marianas National Paddle Sports Federation. This will be the first year that the CNMI is sending individual va’a athletes to compete on the world stage.
The International Va’a Federation has openings for events such as the 500m, 1500m and long distance sprints. The participants will include teams and paddling clubs from 35 countries and territories, including the CNMI.
The applications of Tarkong and Ball were approved by Justin Andrew, Northern Marianas National Paddle Sports Federation president, the federation board, and the Marianas Outrigger Club board.
There are other fully capable CNMI athletes who could qualify, but for many of them, the two-week long event was too long and the cost of travel to compete was too high.
Tarkong and Ball are paying for their airfare, hotel, car rental and meals.
The IVF world sprints have two categories: elite (country) and clubs. Tarkong and Ball will compete in the elite category. Tarkong will see action in the masters (50-59) division while Ball will compete in the open women’s division.
Pipit Ball
In an interview, Tarkong said Ball “is the number one V1 paddler here in the CNMI. She has never lost a race on the V1 and came in second last year at the Micro Cup competition in Guam. She is also the stroker for [the Marianas Outrigger Club] (seat 1), and MOC women have been a dominant force…in the CNMI paddling federation competition. They swept the medals last year in Guam: two golds and one silver in team competition with Pip as their stroker.”
As for Tarkong, he said, “It is an honor to represent our islands.”
Recently, in the Micronesian Games in Majuro, he helped the CNMI wrestling team’s Ryan Babauta and James Attao Green Jr. win two gold medals as their assistant coach. Their head coach was Richard Bauer.
“At my age, full contact sports like MMA and wrestling limit my ability to compete,” Tarkong said. “However, to compete in my age category in paddling, which is a less physical impact sport, is a blessing. I am proud to represent my age group and classmates — Mount Carmel High School Class of 1984. Hopefully I can prove that age is nothing but a number,” he added.
Jason Tarkong
Tarkong will compete in the Masters 50 Men – V1 500 on Sunday, Aug. 18 while Ball will compete in the Open Women – V1 500 on Monday, Aug. 19.
If you want to support Tarkong and Ball, you can donate to their GoFundMe account at https://shorturl.at/HR5Xi
