2015 Pacific Games - Team PNG

Gates have opened at 2pm with the official event set to kick off at 4pm and roll through to 9 tonight.

There will be special performances by Prote-J,  Dadiigi, Anslom, Akay47 and George Telek.

Along with them will be the Paramana Strangers, Straky, Willie Tropu, Deejays, Mereani Masani, Taz, Delma Minei and
Enchanted Groove.

There will also be live comedy performances by funny man Elton Kili,the  Watete group and Omokoi.

The women’s 400m medal race will be run at the BSP Stadium at 8 tomorrow night.

The women were divided into two groups to qualify for the finals, with Papua New Guinea coming first in both heats.

Home crowd favorite Toea Wisil won the second heat, clocking 56.64 seconds which was the second fastest time from the heats.

Wisil is the defending Pacific Games champion but clocked a little slower than Burua and will have to put in the extra effort to defend her gold medal.

Wisil won the gold medal in the 2011 Pacific Games with a time of 54.94 seconds.

The 23 year old defeated Sandip Pala of Fiji to take out the title in the men individual kumite -60kg event.

Bana was too strong for the Fijian, going for the upper kick during the three minutes battle to take him down 8-0.

Stephen Manaruru of Vanuatu and Emmanuel Faure of New Caledonia each got bronze.

Bana was humbled by the win and said a lot of sacrifices had paid off. He had to leave school studying science at the University of PNG this year to undergoing training for this event.

PNG won the game in the first half, scoring all three of their goals through Georgina Kaikas, Ramona Padio and Meagen Gunemba.

Gunemba, after three games, has scored five goals.

PNG will meet New Caledonia for gold this Thursday. New Caledonia was too strong, beating Cook Islands 5-1 in the first semi-final earlier today.

This means Cook Islands play Samoa in the bronze play off.

PNG took out gold and silver in the 25m pistol event.

PNG Loop’s Head of Mobile Advertising and Media Sales Tania Mahuru won gold while silver went to PNG’s Mel Donald and a  Tahiti shooter took bronze.

Mahuru has been in the sport for only 10 months.  She told PNG Loop that her win as a big achievement considering that.

The enthusiastic Mahuru said she took up the sport just for fun and didn’t think she would get this far.

“I kept coming every weekend and got better and eventually made the development squad and the Pacific Games team,” she said.

One goal in the first and another midway through the second half set up the win for PNG.

There were early  worrying signs for PNG when strike player Tommy Semmy was taken off the field for some minutes,  but PNG surged on to bring home the points.

PNG’s  Jacob Sabua took on the Solomon Islands backline and stole the ball to dribble into attack and score PNG’s second for a lead of 2-0.

The Solomon Islanders rallied and got back in the game when Timothy Bakale caught the defence napping and powered a low ball from the wing into the nets.