November 6 2016
By Olivia Edwards
With local competitors coming together to play against international teams, the Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games (JPPMG) encourages participants from near and far to Play it, Live it, Love it!
This year, teams from Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea converged at the new Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games venue, the Coomera Indoor Sports Centre, to compete in the basketball tournament.
As the Sri Lanka Blues men’s team return for their 10th JPPMG, team player Lionel Gunawardena says they hope to medal again this year after placing in the 2010 and 2012 games.
“The event is well organised and the facilities are great,” Lionel said.
“It’s good to be here and have our masters players get together for the games.”
For the first time, the Sri Lanka Blues created a women’s team to participate in the event. Premila Fernando has been playing for years and is excited to be at her first games with the team.
“Although we only have eight players and have practised for only one month together, we are still hoping to be in the finals,” Premila said.
“We are excited for the next few days and are looking forward to playing together.”
Joining the list of international teams is the Papua New Guinea Lae Green women’s basketball team. Coming back each year since 2012 to participate, Martha Aaron says they travel the distance to play their favourite sport with a team that feels more like family.
“We love basketball and that’s why we come back, to have fun and play with people at our level,” Martha said.
“In Lae we have club basketball, we all met there and have known each other for a long time, since we started playing at our local association, it’s been more like family basketball.
“It’s a nice challenge here, and a lot of fun, we love this event.”
These are only two of the many countries being represented at the games this year, as the spirit of the event will continue to be spread throughout the world and inspire more teams to join in on the competition.
The 10th biennial Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games is being held 5 – 13 November 2016 on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
The event showcases competition in 43 sports and is hosting 13,000 participants from Queensland, interstate and overseas.
