The PNG Olympic Committee will be hosting a series of Youth Athlete Development workshops around the country from 21st to the 28th January, 2023.
Through the support from the Olympic Solidarity and Kumul Consolidated Holdings Ltd, the PNGOC will be running workshops in Port Moresby, Goroka, Lae and Kokopo with the aim of building up the capacity of its member National Federations and the other stakeholders in sport that play an important part in identifying talent and developing them.
PNG Olympic Committee (PNGOC) Secretary General, Auvita Rapilla said the workshops would assist National Federations (NFs) improve their understanding around developing their own youth athlete development (YAD) programs or talent identification and development (TID) programs to help them with proper structured athlete pathways for the future.
Rapilla added: “These workshops are the starting blocks for member federations to build their foundation towards having stronger athlete pathways from the grassroots right through to the elite level where we can have more athletes perform at a higher level”.
She said that these workshops are part of Team PNG’s Performance Strategy where Development Pathways is a key focus area.
“Key factor in this is for all stakeholders to collaborate and work towards a common goal which is to see Team PNG perform consistently at the multi-sports Games level. The workshop will identify key areas for all stakeholders to strengthen their areas of support as we look towards achieving consistent success at World Cups, World Championships, Pacific Games, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games” added Rapilla”.
PNGOC will be working closely with its major partner, PNG Sports Foundation including High Performance Sport PNG and National Sports Institute to deliver on these workshops.
The workshops are the first phase of the project where it is aimed at enhancing and educating the NFs and make them aware of best practice around Youth Athlete Development and Talent ID and eventually have NFs develop their own TID programs to discover world class talent.
The workshops will be facilitated by two Australian experts in Talent Identification & Development, Dr. Peter Davis and Dr. Jason Gulbin who have vast amounts of experience in Talent ID, sport management and high performance.
A total of five (5) workshops have been scheduled to be held in the four main regional centres around the country:
Port Moresby
• Saturday 21st January
• Sunday 22nd January
Goroka
• Tuesday 24th January
Lae
• Thursday 26th January
Kokopo
• Saturday 28th January
PNGOC has invited all member National Federations and Provincial sport authorities to participate in these important workshops.