Written by Bob Snow, OAA Life Member
To give the 100m sprinters extra competition, both the women’s and the men’s divisions had races during the Masters’ programme from the previous day. Without all the main contenders taking the opportunity for an extra run, the early favourites would appear to be Pais Wisil (Melanesia – PNG) and Johnny Keys (Polynesia – Samoa). The Australians and PNG’s Leroy Kamau did not race. Pais is the third of the well-known PNG family with sister Toea and brother Kupun already having made their mark on Pacific Island Athletics.
In the Women’s invitational, Adrine Monagi (Melanesia – PNG) was a comfortable winner, but her main opponents did not race today.
Interspersed in the 100+ Masters’ events during the day, the Oceania Cup got underway, and some exceptionally good performances resulted. The Oceania Athletics technical officials, who had mainly come from Australia, threw themselves into the Masters’ competition and had good success with many gold medals resulting. Bragging rights once they returned home to Australia and Fiji from the paradise of Saipan. These multi-talented officials shall remain nameless!
The full results of the day’s events are to be found on the OAA website.
First points in the Cup for women went to Micronesia where Regine Tugade-Watson won the 100m in 12.06 (-2.4) from Leonie Beu (Melanesia) who ran 12.39 (-2.1), and Charlotte Banks (Australia) in 12.51 (-2.4).
Leonie Beu bounced back to win the 400m for Melanesia with a time of 55.70 from Australia’s Alice Dixon (55.96).
The 1500m was a fierce race between the two Australians who came first – Lily Mather (4:42.11) and second – Nyree Hamilton (4:42.57) and Scholastica Herman from Melanesia in third (4:52.47).
Adrine Monagi (Melanesia) was a comfortable winner of the 100m Hurdles in 14.46 (-1.2). Melanesia continued on its winning way with Edna Boafob winning the High Jump (1.55m) and Rellie Kaputin winning the Triple Jump in 11.65m (+0.5).
In the Women’s throws big winners were Emma Berg (Australia) in the Shot Put (15.26m) and Alexandra Morgan (Polynesia) in the Discus (50.96m).
In the Men’s events the 100m was full of top-quality performances with the winner being Melanesia’s Lerory Kamau (10.65 – with a wind reading of -2.1 metres per second). Melanesia’s Pais Wisil was next with a time of -1.7 mps, and Johnny Keys from Polynesia in 10.84 (-1.7 mps).
Wind has played a big factor in many of the sprint events and horizontal jumps over the past few days. This situation is likely to stay the same – but hopefully the rain will leave us alone to enjoy the competition.
The 400m was won by Australia’s Daniel Blest (47.68) from Adolf Kauba (48.01) and Daniel Baul (48.15) with both coming from Team Melanesia.
The 1500m for Men was a fantastic race with only 12/100th of a second separating the winner from Polynesia – Kylie Cabalse (4:09.44) over Melanesia’s Aquila Turalom (4:09.56).
Hurdle specialist, Kolone Alefosio (Polynesia) showed his class in the 110m Hurdles (15.20 with a wind reading of -2.3 mps) finishing ahead of Melanesia’s Decathlete, Karo Iga (16.09).
The final event of the day was the Men’s 4 x 100m Relay with the Papua New Guinea Team, representing Melanesia recorded 40.71 to now have the 6th fastest time by a PNG Team – and this was with two non-100m sprinters – one being a Decathlete. They had very slick baton changes. Polynesia was second with 41.63 seconds.
Big winners in their field events were – Nicholas Kollias (Australia) in the High Jump (2.15m), Inoke Waisale (Melanesia) in the Triple Jump (14.78m with a wind reading of +5.8 mps) and Micronesia’s Jonathan Datageouwa in the Shot Put (16.07m). Elijah Poila from Polynesia was a narrow winner in the Discus (43.87m) from Australia’s Jackson Mellor (42.86m).
At the end of Day one of the Oceania Cup the rankings were as follows –
- Melanesia – 120 points
- Polynesia. – 98 points
- Australia – 86 points
- Micronesia – 81 points
- Northern Marianas – 57 points.
The Oceania Cup will conclude tomorrow, but the Masters’ Championships still has two days to go.
A big thanks go to Reese and Prashika, two keen Northern Mariana volunteers, who took control of the camera and followed the events all day until the battery went flat. Ladies – you did a wonderful job.
