Star-Studded Athletics Team to Tear Up the Track in Palau

The NMI National Athletics Team is tearing up the track at the Oleai Sports Complex and in their respective training spaces off island, all in pursuit of track and field glory against some of the Pacific's best—and even a few Olympians—at the upcoming 2025 Palau Pacific Mini Games from June 29 to July 9.

The squad are no stranger to competition as all but one athlete have experience in regional or international competition.

The star-studded roster features multi-medalist and national and Pacific Games/Micro Games record holder Tania Tan, seasoned competitors and Micro Games gold medalists Maria Quitugua and Lyle Andrew, and fresh high school talent Theodore Rodgers, Kaithlyn Chavez, Simon Tang, and Victor Nash Santos. The team is coached by national sprinter Zarinae Sapong and Ron Olopai.

Rep. Elias Rangamar, Northern Marianas Athletics national coach who coaches some members of the team locally said during one of their training sessions that the team is now tapering.

“We're progressing. We got a couple more weeks so now we're kind of tapering which is a lot more intense. We've lowered down the volume, so now we're trying to emulate competition, so everything is very intense. We're mimicking our warm ups when we get down there.”

His expectations for the team, he said, “I'm confident. These are the best of the crop we have. They were medalists or finalists in the last Micro Games so I'm pretty confident with them. I know we'll get some medals, or get to the finals, and also I'm pretty sure they'd break some national records.”

As for the coaching staff going down with the team, he said, “We've got experienced coaches. Coach Ronald has been to a lot of international competitions and we also have Zari. She kind of prematurely retired but she wants to coach. She'll be leading the girls and handling the sprints, and Ron will be handling the throwers which are Maria, along with Lyle who is training in Guam who they'll meet and head to Palau together.”

Chavez, a local soccer star and multi-sport athlete, is competing in the 800m and 400m events. She last competed with the track team during the 2022 Mini Games held here and said her motivation to join this year was to finish her track season by representing NMI and hopefully beat her record again of 2:29.24 in the 800m which she set during the 2023 Oceania Cup held here.

The 2025 graduate of Saipan International School said about representing NMI, “It's a great opportunity and great blessing. I'm not only doing it for myself, but everyone around me.” After the Games, she is returning to Saipan and is competing in a big soccer tournament before kicking off her collegiate career in the University of Mobile.

For 21-year-old Quitugua, who bagged gold in the javelin throw during the 2024 Micronesian Games, this Mini Games will mark her fourth straight regional competition. She competed in the 2022 Mini Games held here where she won bronze with her 4x100m relay team, the 2023 Pacific Games in Solomon Islands, the 2024 Micro Games in Marshall, and now the 2025 Mini Games in Palau.

When asked what her motivation was to keep competing, she said, “My biggest motivation is my family and my brother [Traven] who passed away. He's been doing track for many years, and when I was young, I always looked up to him and saw how he would perform, and that just motivated me to keep going.”

She said her goal this time around is to beat her previous record she set in the Micro Games and to “have a strong execution.” On her training so far, she's pretty pumped about it as she's been training for a while, and is “super excited to go out and finally compete.”

As for multi-sport athlete Tang, who also graduated this year but from Saipan Southern High School, he has a busy training load as he is also in the Men's National Indoor Volleyball Team.

For track and field, he is competing in the 110m and 400m hurdles.

On his training load with track and volleyball training, the 17-year-old said he has training everyday—mornings at the track and evenings at the gym for volleyball. With how he balances it all, he said, “It's pretty hard to balance, especially with getting enough hours of sleep everyday and trying to prepare and study for college fall semester coming up, as well as trying to get better in the sports I'm doing.”

His reason for joining both sports? He said, “It's for the love of the game. I love playing volleyball—I love the team we have. I also love doing track because I feel like the people around us push us forward and I just want to improve in everything I can.”