Posted By Staff Reporter
IT IS three days into the new year. But sports administrators, team officials and particularly the athletes who are serious about their performance have already started work with their preparations.
Last year is history but that should not be totally lost on anybody’s memory unless they have had a complete mental breakdown. The experiences from the year gone by have to be rewound and the microscope trained on them. So that any mistakes made are not repeated. So that what brought success can be tailored into the new year’s programmes and the bar raised so the same thing can be done better. For sports that are on the programme for the Pacific Games – the next 12 months is the time they have remaining to get themselves as well prepared as possible for 2015. Papua New Guinea as host nation in collaboration with the Pacific Games Council have nominated 28 sports for the games programme cannot afford not to impress in front of an anticipated parochial home crowd. Papua New Guineans will not expect anything less than being crowned the champion nation after the July 4 to 18 games in 2015. In 1991 when Port Moresby and Lae co-hosted the games PNG topped the medal count with 44 gold medals to win the event. This time only Port Moresby will host the games with more than 600 athletes and officials to make up the home team. That is expected to be the largest team compared to what the visiting countries will field. And that must translate into the most number of medals to be won by the largest country in the Pacific. With so much money – K760 million - to be spent on the Pacific Games on infrastructure development such as venues, the games villages and related costs – Papua New Guineans will be expecting nothing but the best from Team PNG. That’s money that could have been used on other important areas like roads and bridges to link up rural areas to accessible markets for the rural population to sell their produce so that they can feed themselves. These monies could have been used to build better hospitals and clinics, beef up the medical drug supply to give the population better health services. Many other projects would start putting their hands up for such funding. Instead it has been diverted to sports and the spin-offs like promoting the country’s image, giving tourism a shot in the arm among others that will be generated by the Pacific Games. However, other sporting programmes which are not part of the Pacific Games but are and will be getting funds from the Government coffers over the next few years are not spared the high expectations from the PNG population. They include the PNG Hunters franchise, which this week resumed training for its debut season in Queensland Intrust Super Cup competition this year. PNG Rugby Football League officials have said that most of the K6 million needed to fund the operations of the team this year will come from corporate sponsors like SP Brewery, which have secured the naming rights. But the Government is expected to prop them up with K1.5 million annually at least for this year and until they are self-sustainable in their five-year licence. That’s money that can be put to better use elsewhere, many would argue. So the Hunters must deliver as expected like the Pacific Games sports. PNG Facts / The National Comments are closed.
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