by Dave Delgado
Guam - Our men's national paddling team is coming off a good performance in the Micronesian Games that were held in Palau last year where they took home a gold and silver medal. The team looks to follow up their performance with a good showing at the Pacific Games where they will be competing in the 500-meter sprints, 2,500-meter sprint and 30k marathon distance race. Head coach Ron Ruiz is confident that the men's team will hopefully medal in one of these events.
Head coach Ron Ruiz said, "I've been coaching since Samoa, Micro Games in Saipan and Micro Games in Palau. Last year we got a gold and silver and the year before that we did the SPG Mini Games in the Cook Islands. Like I said last year we got the gold and silver in the 500-meter and 1,500-meter. This year in New Caledonia there will be a 500-meter sprint, we have a good chance in medalling in that and they are increasing the 1,500-meter to 2,500-meters in the Pacific Games. We have been training hard for that and also the marathon is 30k."
The team has been training 6 days a week putting their minds and bodies to the test hitting the waters as much as possible in order to keep up with the rest of the competition. The team has a lot of veteran leadership and determination to make it on the podium in New Caledonia.
Team member Shawn Franquez said, "We're going to get out there with what we got, and what we got, we got a lot. Our hearts are full of courage; bodies loaded with physical strength and our minds are powerful full of mental power. We've been training hard 6 days a week and we are doing it all for you, every stroke that we stroke. I would like to give a sincere thank you to all our support team out there, friends and family helping us get out to the games and may god bless thank you all."
"We are trying our hardest practicing almost everyday getting a good workout and trying to improve all facets of what paddling has to do with. We look to bring back a medal at least for this sport," added Scott Ishizu.
Competition at the Pacific Games will be tough with many of the countries having real good national team programs. Team Guam is focused on the task at hand and believes that the team heading out to the games will be ready in time for the races.
Austin Carbullido said, "We are expecting the competition out there to be pretty tough so when we're practicing we're training really hard and when we get there we're going to show them what we got and represent the island to the fullest<" with Billy Taitingfong adding, "Basically I just motivate them and try keeping us in the right direction. For the games we have just been paddling hard and doing the best we can and hopefully we come out on top."
