Team PNG

Despite returning without a medal this time round, the team was grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this year’s Commonwealth Youth Games and have set higher future goals for themselves.

“The main purpose for Team PNG was to expose our young athletes to a higher level of competition and a multi-sport Games environment, and each of them achieved that which is a great building block for the future,” said Team PNG Chef de Mission, Michael Henao.

“Earlier in the day we attended and participated in an interactive learning program called "Athletes Lab" where participants talked about social issues affecting the Commonwealth in the context of sport and we discussed solutions, “said Chef de Mission, Michael Henao.

He said Team PNG attended the closing ceremony at the Thomas Robinson Stadium in Nassau and are now all packed and looking forward to returning home.

“We will be arriving at Jacksons Airport on 28th July at 12pm flying Qantas,” said Henao.

The PNG girls kept the pressure on right from the start and finally broke the defence down in the 30^th minute through Jacklyn Maiyosi, who fired one past keeper Karine Xozame.

The lead was pushed out to 2-0 right on half-time, thanks to a well-placed strike off the boot of PNG’s first goal scorer at the FIFA World Cup – Nicollete Ageva.

There was no stopping PNG after this, starting with a goal from Ramona Padio three minutes into the second half.

The highlight for PNG was in the last race of the night that Toea Wisil, as expected, blitzed the field in the women’s 100m to win by a margin of 0.6 of a second.

In the men’s race, Nazmie Lee Marai almost caused a major upset as he closed in fast on the hot favourite Jeremy Dodson of Samoa (formerly of the USA) with the finish line approaching.

His run however, was timed a fraction late as he missed out on a world championships qualifying win by 2/100^th of a second.

While the main emphasis may be on the Pacific Mini-Games to be held in Vanuatu in December, Team PNG is equally excited about participating at two international events which will take place before this.

The first of these is the Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG) at Nassau in the Bahamas which will be held from July 19 to 23.

Chef de Mission for Team PNG, Michael Henao said the Commonwealth Youth Games are an exciting opportunity for young Papua New Guineans to aspire to be something great.

Competing in the men’s judo -66kg division, Bouchard, who is ranked 16^th in the world, was declared the winner by Ippon with Uchi-mata.

Ippon is the highest score a fighter can achieve while Uchi-mata in judo is an inner thigh throw.

Ovinou was apologetic in defeat, feeling he had let the nation down.

The Canadian Bouchard went on to fight for the bronze medal in the -66kg division.

Ovinou is PNG’s first judo athlete to compete at an Olympics.

Katua will face off against his more experienced Russian opponent, Adlan Abdurashidov, who has been competing since 2009.

The Russian from the Akhmat Fight Club mentions chess as one of his hobbies but it will be Katua looking to checkmate the Russian in their first round bout.

The twenty-six year old, Abdurashidov qualified for the Rio Games as a highly ranked APB competitor and is a quality orthodox boxer with a high level of skill and experience.

The Village welcome is a tradition at the Olympics and provides the opportunity for the Mayor of the Games Village to officially welcome each country to the village and for the flag of the country to be raised at the village.

Mayor of the Rio 2016 Village, Brazilian basketball star and Olympic medallist, Janeth Arcain, greeted Team PNG along with the teams from Iceland, Luxembourg, Oman, Sierra Leone and South Sudan in what was the last of the Village welcome ceremonies.