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Koror, Palau — It was an explosive 4th of July for Team Marianas as they hauled in more medals, unofficially broke more national records, and notched big wins. The rain kept falling, but it didn’t dampen their campaign to put the NMI on the map at the 2025 Pacific Mini Games.
The day started off with a bang as athletics finally opened up early with Tania Tan getting the gold in the 10,000m with a time of 38:03.57. Tan, who turned 24-years-old in Palau, gifted herself the gold medal for her birthday and wanted to put more women on the podium for Team Marianas.
After not completing the same race in the 2022 PMG back home, she finished this Mini Games in style, also thanks to the cooler weather brought on by rain. She said finishing this year’s race felt really good. “Last Mini Games, we all knew how that went. So I’m like this Mini Games, I knew I could get a gold medal because I did in Solomon so it’s not impossible—I’m like, ‘just go out there and do your best, run for the flag because it is our islands and everyone back home is always supporting us’.
The weather, she said, “was downpouring right before the start of the race so I actually just warmed up in the bleachers, just running back and forth for 10-15 minutes. But then luckily it kind of cleared up for my race, but I was kind of glad that it was cloudy just because it wasn’t super hot and we weren’t overheated. It was super cool and just super wet.”
Later in the morning, Lyle Andrew bagged the team another gold for his performance in the hammer throw. He recorded a throw of 33.06m.
He said after his event, “It was okay. As you can see it’s raining pretty hard. Pretty nervous, I’ve never really thrown in the rain like this, but overall I feel okay.” With getting the gold, he said, “I feel pretty good. There’s only four people in the event so you know it’s still an okay win. Hopefully in bigger competitions I can put up more of a fight and represent again… the throwers I went up against were pretty young. I have high hopes that they’ll come back again and be stronger and hopefully I get to compete against them. It was competing against those guys.”
The day ended with another explosion of medals as, like clockwork, flagbearer Isaiah Aleksenko recorded another gold medal race, this time in the 100m backstroke, while the 400m medley relay team bagged a bronze.
Aleksenko said after his sixth straight day of swimming and winning a gold in each one, “It was definitely hard. I’m definitely very, very tired because of all the events and all the days in a row. So I’m feeling weak right now, but it’s okay because I only have one more event left which is the relay and I’m definitely going to try my best because I want to end it on a good note.” He and the team with Kean Pajarillaga, Moshe Sikkel, and Kouki Watanabe then won bronze in the relay after his 100m backstroke.
On how he feels about his medals, he said, “I’m feeling really great. I know I keep saying that but I actually am you know. So it’s definitely an honor.” As for the team’s performance, he said, “We’re definitely doing great. We had some negative mindsets, but we made sure to stay positive.
In other games, the fastpitch softball team finally recorded a win as they beat Marshall Islands, in another nail-biter, 10-9; the men’s and women’s indoor volleyball team swept their Nauru counterparts in three straight sets; while the beach volleyball duo snagged their second win, this time against Fiji.
Story by Leigh Gases
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