Obert Piawa who hails from New Ireland and Manus Province is persistent about achieving his dream of becoming a qualified PNG rep for athletics.
The 24 year old has been in athletics in New Ireland for four years and is looking forward to stepping up his game in upcoming competitions.
He took up the role of being the team captain for the New Ireland Athletic team representing the province in various athletics competition.
Obert, who currently resides in Kavieng in the New Ireland province, is the third born of six siblings in their family and has been trained by one of PNG’s well known athletes, Shibul Babo.
His major track event is the 800m sprint and minor event is the 1500m and 400m sprints.
Whilst studying at the International Training Institute and National Fisheries College in Kavieng, Obert tried his best to tackle multiple tasks in order to be physically and mentally fit, so to avoid unnecessary injuries when on the track.
“It’s quite challenging. I have school assessments and tasks to do, training every afternoon and following my timetable to stay fit is too much on my plate. Also, being the team captain for the athletics team for the province is challenging but I still got through”, said Mr. Piawa.
The young athlete is confident that New Ireland has the potential to produce more young runners and with the support from the provincial government and business houses.
“More sporting facilities, more participation from the government and proper funding from different sources would greatly promote this sporting code within the province”
“Athletics is the baseline of all sporting codes so if any individual performs well in it, it will be easy for them to develop their skills to try other games”, said Obert.
He also highlighted the absence of proper funding for the association when they had travelled to Kokopo last September to compete in the NGI Regional Championships, saying that athletes were self-sponsored to take part in the event.
“We had been preparing for 4 months to take part in the NGI Regional Championships in Kokopo last year but sadly, 26 of us out of the 32 athletes were able to self-sponsor ourselves to Kokopo.”
“With the 26 athletes who went down to compete, they returned with 27 medals from different track events. This clearly shows that our athletes have the potential to excel in the field of athletics”, said Obert.
With this, he encouraged young New Irelanders to participate in athletics and to focus on achieving their goals.
“Giving up is never an option. You have to achieve what goals you have in place and trust the process while you at it. This may be in your school, work, job, or training.”
Mr. Piawa finished off by stating that the more involvement of youths in such activities, will reduce nuisance and criminal activities caused by them in their communities.
As sports can take them anywhere in the world and furthermore provide more educational opportunities for them.