A waka ama club based in the Marshall Islands has been raising funds to send a group of paddlers to its first regional competition.
The 24th Annual Micronesian Cup will be held in Saipan, the capital in the Northern Mariana Islands, from October 18-20.
The Marshall Islands Canoe Paddling Federation is one of the canoe clubs participating this year despite its limited resources.
Tatiana Shoniber is one of the paddlers from the federation. She said they don’t utilise their ocean enough despite being in a prime location for the water sport.
“We live on an island where there’s so much ocean but we don’t utilise it. This is like our first ocean sport that’s really happening right now.”
The federation is relying on local sponsors and fundraising efforts to support its 20 athletes’ participation in the competition.
“We have our Olympic committee office here and they keep telling us it’s hard to support us because we’re not an Olympic sport. We try to reach out to other sponsors.
“We’re really limited with what we have now. We only have two canoes we’re using to practicse but we were able to order our own paddles. It’s coming along slowly but surely.”
She said since reviving the federation last year, after its collapse in 2018, it has seen positive results in recruitment.
“It’s a national-level competition and the only way we could compete is through a federation... They got some canoes and it was me and my colleagues were like ‘let’s go paddling’.
“First we started off really small, to the point where we couldn’t even fill in one canoe but now we’re we have so many interested athletes to the point where we have to alternate girls and boys.”
Shoniber is planning to open a clinic to engage tamariki in the sport.
“Right now we don’t have the right size paddles, so hopefully in the future we can get smaller paddles for kids.”
The Micronesia Cup began in 1999 as a regional outrigger canoe race and alternates host countries between Guam, Saipan CNMI, and Palau.
