Mixed results for
athletes at Grand Prix
4 medals won in Saipan
Meet the new CISNOC chief
Masters train with eyes on Oceania medals
10 medals won at Oceania athletics
Tupapa soccer off to NZ
Schoolgirl eyes 2 ways to Beijing
Olympic team named today
National games will be a 'test'
American cheerleaders here to amaze
Sevens team named for Samoa
No EIA submissions yet
Olympic team naming delayed
Mixed results for athletes at Grand Prix
Thursday 26: The 11 member Cook Islands athletics squad have achieved some outstanding results at the recent two day Oceania Grand Prix series in Saipan, Northern Marianas.
Their achievements are even more admirable considering that the team arrived in Saipan, after their long flight from Rarotonga via Auckland, Brisbane, Cairns and Guam - just a day before the competition began.
Cook Islands assistant team manager Siniva Marsters reports that the team were met in Saipan by the Cook Islands community group there led by Mii Tekopua and his wife plus their team of dancers.
Despite great performances by the local athletes, they did not win medals at the Grand Prix.
According to Marsters this is because the Grand Prix series is based on overall team performance and a points system. However medals are almost guaranteed for the local throwers in the Oceania Area Championships which began yesterday.
Marsters says that national discus thrower Tereapii Tapoki has around a 23 metre advantage on her competitors in the women's open discus event.
Marsters says that there isn't much competition in the throwing events as many of the top throwers in Oceania are not at the championships.
The Cook Islands athletes in Saipan are Gordon Heather (100m), Kristopher Williamson (high jump), Cameron Nicholas (200m/400m), Daniel Tutai from Aitutaki (javelin), Tereaere Parima from Aitutaki (100m/200m), Henry Taripo from Mauke (discus/shot put), Denis Taripo from Mauke (javelin/Shot put), Patricia Taea (100m/long jump/javelin), Samantha Locking (javelin/long jump), Harmon Harmon (100m) and Tereapii Tapoki (discus).
On day one of the Grand Prix series held on Saturday 21 June, Samantha Lockington took out second place in the open women javelin event.
The 18 year old best throw out of six was 32.70m with the winner from French Polynesia taking out the event with a throw of 35.70m.
Kristopher Williamson also took out second place in the open men's high jump event with a jump of 1.70m. The winner from Papua New Guinea won with a jump of 1.85m.
Tereapii Tapoki took out first place on the first day of the open women discus event with a throw of 50.37m.
Tapoki increased her throw by three metres on the second day of the competition to take out the event.
The sprinters from Papua New Guinea, Northern Marianas and Solomon Islands were just too good for our local sprinters with Gordon Heather taking out 13th out of 22 in the open men's 100m sprints.
Heather completed his race in 11.63 with the winner of the event from Papua New Guinea blitzing the field in a time of 11.17.
In the same race, Aitutakian Tereaere Parima placed 17th with a time of 11.88 while Harmon Harmon finished 22 in a time of 12.22.
On the second day of races in the Grand Prix series held on Monday 23 June, Mauke javelin thrower Denis Taripo took out second place in the open men's javelin event with a mighty throw of 45.27m with the winner, Leslie Copeland of Fiji throwing a whopping 66.18m.
Daniel Tutai came third with a throw of 44.54m.
In the women's long jump event, Lockington again placed second with a jump of 4.96m.
The winner of the event jumped to 5.84m.
In the men's 200m sprints, Harmon placed 21st in a field of 25 finishing the race in 24.83 while team mate Cameron Nicholas came 23rd in a time of 25.12.
Mauke island athlete Henry Taripo placed fourth in the open men's discus event with a throw of 33.37m with the winner taking out the event with a 48.03m throw.
The athletes are now taking part in the Oceania Area Championships for open category and under 18 athletes.
Parents and supporters who would like to send messages of support to the Cook Islands athletics team in Saipan can email Marsters on sinistyles@hotmail.com - Matariki Wilson
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4 medals won in Saipan
Friday 27: The Cook Islands athletics team in Saipan has won four bronze medals after the first day of competition at the Oceania Area Championships in Northern Marianas.
Kristopher Williamson won a bronze medal in the high jump.
Williamson broke his personal best record of 1.73m with a 1.83 jump.
Samantha Lockington won the country's second bronze medal during the open women's javelin event with a throw of 32.70m.
Mauke athlete Henry Taripo won a bronze medal in the under 18 men's discus event with a throw of 38.53m.
Patricia Taea threw 31.91m in the under 18 women's javelin event to also win a bronze medal.
The other athletes have also clocked up some great times in the sprint events, however none made it the finals. - Matariki Wilson
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Meet the new CISNOC chief
Saturday 28: The Cook Islands national sports body has a brighter looking future with the appointment of the organisation's new chief executive officer Robert Wyllie.
He's pictured (at left) here with CISNOC president Tiki Matapo.
Wyllie started his two-year contract with CISNOC on Monday 23 June.
His main responsibility is to run the office and staff plus look after the national federations and report back to CISNOC executives.
Originally from Auckland, Wyllie has 12 years of commercial experience having worked on large scale development company start-ups.
He has served on a number of boards of directors, and has been involved with a number of sporting codes and voluntary organisations as a player and committee member.
Wyllie says he has a good understanding of operational requirements.
He has been living on Rarotonga for the past 18 months with his Cook Islands wife Susan (nee Tuoro) and their two kids.
A water sports lover, Wyllie competed in last year's Vaka Eiva Festival paddling for Te Tupu O Te Manava's masters crew.
He says he is looking forward to working with the different sporting codes in the Cook Islands, and both he and the CISNOC executives are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for CISNOC and sport in the Cook Islands. - Matariki Wilson
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Masters train with eyes on Oceania medals
Saturday 28: Members of the Cook Islands masters athletics team who will be taking part in the Oceania Masters Championships to be held in Townsville, Australia, between 27 July and 3 August are showing improvements during their training.
Three members of the Cook Islands squad, Mona Henderson, Terai Hill and Teariki Tamarua, have been training together twice a week for the past three weeks.
Henderson reports that at each training session the trio have seen improvements in their performances, especially in the throwing events.
In the shot put, Henderson has improved her throw from 7.22 metres to 7.60 metres, Tamarua has improved from 7.22 to 7.60, while Terai Hill has also improved her throw from 5.87 to 6.42 metres.
In the discus, Henderson has recorded a new personal best with each throw from 25.37 metres to 26.22 metres while Tamarua has also recorded a personal best discus throw with an initial 18.92-metre distance to his new personal best throw of 23.06 metres.
Hill has improved her throw to a distance of 17.12 metres.
In the javelin, Henderson has recorded her personal best throw at 25.20 metres, an improvement on her first 21.40 metres.
Tamarua has gone from his initial javelin throw of 17.40 metres to now reaching 22.20 metres while Hill has recorded a personal best in this event throwing a distance of 18.17 metres after her first throw of 15.77 metres.
Training for the trio will now increase to three days a week with the Oceania event fast approaching.
Henderson says that they have been helping each other out during training with some professional help coming from Athletics Cook Islands president John Teiti.
The local masters team includes Moana and Kevin Henderson, David and Liz Lobb, Bernadette Raffe, Geoff Stoddart, Terai Hill, Teariki Tamarua, Takau Moekaa and Pepe Matenga. They will be joined by former Rarotonga residents Kath and Graig Hutson who now live back in Australia.
At the 2006 Oceania Masters Athletics Championships held in Christchurch, a team of 11 Cook Islands athletes brought home a total of 27 medals.
The team's achievements that year included the trophy for the highest number of medals per head of population. This was previously held by Norfolk Island.
Henderson, Tamarua and Hill train on Tuesday afternoon and Saturday morning at the national stadium and other members of the masters squad wanting to train with the trio are more than welcome. - Matariki Wilson
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10 medals won at Oceania athletics
Monday 30: The Cook Islands athletics team will return home tomorrow with 10 medals - two gold, three silver and five bronze medals - from the Oceania Area Championships in Saipan, Northern Marianas.
As predicted, Tereapii Tapoki won the open women's discus event on the last day of the competition with a throw of 50.59m.
The Cooks' second gold medal was won by Daniel Tutai who cleaned up the open men's javelin with a throw of 52.76m. Fellow athlete Denis Taripo won the silver with a throw of 46.27m.
On day one of the competition the Cooks won five bronze medals.
On the second day of the competition the team added two silver medals to the haul thanks to Samantha Lockington and Patricia Taea.
Samantha Lockington jumped a massive 5.07m in the open women's long jump with the jump also recorded as her best performance for this season.
The second silver medal was won by Patricia Taea in the under 18 long jump.
She just missed out on the gold medal by six centimetres after her silver medal jump of 5.02m. The gold medallist jumped 5.08m to win the event.
Cook Islands assistant team manager and Oceania team manager Siniva Masters reported that the sprinters also set some good times with Harmon Harmon placing eighth out of 15 jumpers in the open men's long jump with a distance of 6.05m.
The winning jump went to South Pacific Games 2007 golden boy Frederick Erin of New Caledonia with a distance of 7.96m. - MW
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Tupapa soccer off to NZ
Monday 30: The Tupapa Maraerenga Soccer Club, champions of the 2007 Rarotonga premier men's competition, will travel to Auckland at the end of next month for a three-match tour.
After winning the round cup competition in 2007, the club qualified to represent the Cook Islands at the Oceania preliminary club tournament. The preliminary club competition will be hosted by Papua New Guinea next month, however due to the high airfare cost in travelling to Papua New Guinea and back, the Tupapa Maraerenga Soccer Club have decided to travel to Auckland, New Zealand for one week and play three matches against club teams.
Club president John Wilson said the club will also use the short tour as a development opportunity for some of the club's younger players in order to prepare them for future domestic competitions as three of the club's senior players have gone overseas. The team is training twice a week on Thursday and Saturdays. Their fundraising raffle will be drawn on Saturday 12 July. -
CIFA/TM
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Schoolgirl eyes 2 ways to Beijing
Tuesday 1: Until now, the Cook Islands have been all about family and fantastic school holidays for Tauranga Girls College kayaker Ella Nicholas.
Now the 17-year-old - courtesy of dad Rob having been born in Rarotonga - could be using the idyllic Pacific nation as her ticket to the Beijing Olympics.
There's been a lot of water, with every pun intended, go under that particular bridge but Nicholas admits it would be her proudest moment.
"I love everything about the Cook Islands and I would be very proud to represent them," Nicholas said. "I also represented them last year and it is amazing how many people do not know the Cook Islands exist - basically everyone I met in Europe. This made me extremely proud of my heritage because it is so unique."
Nicholas has been in Beijing recently trying out the Olympic whitewater slalom course as part of a camp being run by the International Canoeing Federation.
The ICF invited her, along with athletes already qualified for the Olympics, because they see her as a genuine possibility for the 2012 games in London.
But another Tauranga paddler holds the key for Nicholas' ambitions for this year.
Luuka Jones qualified a New Zealand boat in the K1 for Beijing at the Oceania championships earlier this year but now needs to back that up with a top-16 placing at two World Cup meets.
That result will appease the stringent NZOC standards - though if Jones falls short, New Zealand's spot will be offered to the Oceania federation.
That's caused a sizeable dilemma for Nicholas, who travelled from Beijing to Europe for the Prague World Cup and upcoming junior world championships.
"Luuka and I are good friends and training buddies so I wish her all the best. I know that she is working very hard for it and I hope that she does qualify the place.
"If she doesn't I will have a huge decision to make - it would be an awesome experience that would be silly to turn down but I would have to think about it.
"At the moment I am focusing on racing my best at the world cups and at the junior world champs and will be fully supporting Luuka in Prague."
Nicholas is reported to have found the new Olympic course in Beijing a daunting experience, despite coaching from former world champion French kayaker Julien Billaut.
The purpose-built course is technically challenging and Nicholas admits she's spent most of her training sessions practising her rolling technique.
"There is a huge hole in the middle of the course which I roll on every time. I seem to spend a good part of the session going straight into walls and being upside down ... at least I have things to improve on!" - Jamie Troughton BOP Times
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Olympic team named today
Tuesday 1: Team Cook Islands athletes and officials to represent the Cook Islands at the Beijing Olympics in August will be named today.
Team Cook Islands chef de mission Paul Allsworth says the team will be named and confirmed today after the high performance commission meets at 11am today.
Athletes under discussion to represent the Cook Islands are national weightlifter Sam Pera Jnr who over the weekend was awarded one of 10 available wild card entries into the Olympics by International Weightlifting Federation president Tamas Ajan.
National swimmer Petero Okotai is also one of the athletes being looked at to represent the country along with national discus thrower Tereapii Tapoki.
New Zealand based kayak slalom paddler Ella Nicholas is also under consideration. Allsworth says they are waiting to see if the 16-year-old will be available to represent the Cooks as she may be selected in the New Zealand Olympic team.
Team Cook Islands is looking like it will be made up of four athletes plus a coach/manager each.
Leading the team will be chef de mission Paul Allsworth, team attaché George George who will be taking over as chef de mission after Allsworth and a team administrator.
All will be revealed after today's HPC meeting at the CISNOC office. - Matariki Wilson
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National games will be a 'test'
Tuesday 1: The Cook Islands Games scheduled for the first week of August will not only be a test event for elite Cook Islands athletes but also for the 2009 Pacific Mini Games organising committee.
The 2009 Pacific Mini Games organising committee will be charged with a lot of the running of the August games in order to familiarise themselves with their roles prior to the 2009 games.
This includes the opening and closing ceremonies plus the coordination of sports codes during the games.
The national games will start on Saturday 2 August and close on Saturday 9 August.
Most of the venues for the games are proposed venues for the 2009 games, however only 12 of the 15 mini games codes will be played in August.
Fifteen sports codes will be played during the national games between the three vaka on Rarotonga (Puaikura, Takitumu and Te Au O Tonga) and athletes from the outer islands.
The sports codes and proposed venues are athletics (Tereora stadium), basketball (national auditorium), boxing (national auditorium), canoeing (Avarua harbour and Muri beach), golf (Rarotonga Golf Course), lawn bowls (Rarotonga Bowling Club), netball (national auditorium), rugby sevens (Tereora stadium), sailing (Muri beach), squash (St Josephs squash courts), table tennis (Aroa Nui Hall), Tennis (Raemaru hard courts), touch rugby (Raemaru field), volleyball (Nikao Primary School) and weightlifting (national auditorium).
The idea behind the Cook Islands Games is to have a final competition between the top athletes from the three zones being the Manea zone (southern group islands), Purapura zone (northern group islands) and from Tumutevarovaro (Rarotonga).
The sports programme for the games is still to be finalised as national federations are currently working out their game formats with many of the outer islands opting to have Rarotonga based athletes represent them at the CI games.
The southern group islands are gearing up for the Manea Games to be hosted by Aitutaki in October.
Many of the outer islands consider this their premier sporting event. - Matariki Wilson
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American cheerleaders here to amaze
Wednesday 2: Fourteen American cheerleaders are looking forward to amazing diners when they perform their only show here on Rarotonga tonight at the Crown Beach Resort and Spa in Arorangi.
The Wisconsin Down Under Cheer Team will be spending the next few days relaxing on the island after competing at the Australian Down Under Spirits Championship along with 12,000 other cheerleaders.
The team is made up of girls aged between 15 and 18 years who cheer or dance for their respective college teams back home in Wisconsin.
While at the Australian competition the team placed first in the hip hop category, second in the pom and cheer categories.
They also placed first, second and third in the three stunts that they performed in.
One of the team's coaches, Sue Poeschl says that the girls are looking forward to performing tonight as it will be in a more relaxed atmosphere.
For the girls, cheerleading is a sport they love because of the many friends they make and the high energy level of the sport.
To catch the girls in action contact the Crown Beach Resort and Spa in Arorangi to book a spot for tonight's show that costs $55 and includes a meal and the show. - MW
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Sevens team named for Samoa
Wednesday 2: The Cook Islands Rugby Union has named their sevens team to travel to the Rugby World Cup 7s qualifier tournament to held in Samoa on 25 and 26 July.
If successful at this tournament the Cooks team will earn the right to attend 2009 IRB sevens tournaments to be held in Wellington, Adelaide, Hong Kong and Dubai. The team includes two new faces with utility back Vairaro Mahutariki from the Waikato region and loose forward Amosa Anglem from the Nelson Bays/Tasman region.
Also included are 'home boys' currently on rugby contract in NZ Patella Tou (Western Sharks/ Northland) and Norman Heather (Bombay Hawks/Counties-Manukau).
The team of 12 players are as follows: Rangi Vallance (Hawke's Bay), Amosa Anglem (Tasman), Aaron Enoka (Sydney), Bilsy Gukisuva (Avatiu), Norman Heather (Counties), Patella Tou (Northland), Vaivase Samania (Takuvaine), Adam Vardey (Wellington), Vairaro Mahutariki (Waikato), Ioane Ioane (Hawke's Bay), Nathan Robinson (Wellington) and Bruce Goldsworthy (Avatiu).
Non-travelling reserves are Messine Manapori (Aitutaki), Tariu Tairea (Arorangi) and Robert Tuaati (Ngatangiia). The team will be coached by Walter Tangata and managed by Anthony Turua with Brett Bulkeley from Wellington the team physio. - CIRU
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No EIA submissions yet
Wednesday 2: As of yesterday the National Environment Service had yet to receive a single submission on the sports complex environmental impact assessment.
The project valued at $7.1 million is to be funded by a Chinese soft loan and built by a Chinese construction company.
Public submissions on the EIA close on Friday. It has been open to submissions for 30 days as required by the environment act.
Chamber of commerce president Teresa Manarangi-Trott said they may be making a submission on the EIA.
In the meantime there are still whisperings of a legal challenge to the EIA and the project.
One person who did not wish to be named said a legal challenge could have merit in the court. An application to order NES to restart the EIA process could potentially delay the project even more.
Government hopes to have the complex built in time for the 2009 Pacific Mini Games next September.
The person suggested that because over half the population who live in the outer islands have no access to the EIA and NES has an electronic copy it has not published, there should be grounds to stop the process. The person says it is particularly unfair to those in the outer islands because they will feel the same financial impact from the project as those living in Rarotonga.
Time constraints are so big that the Cook Islands Investment Corporation has apparently already asked if the road around the complex could be built before the project permit is issued. That request was turned down.
Once any submissions are processed by NES, the Rarotonga environment authority will sit to consider the application for the project permit.
The authority is chaired by Ian Karika with members including Teava Iro, Tuaine Teokotai, House of Ariki representative Joseph Vakatini and the MPs of Rarotonga.
NES director Vaitoti Tupa said the authority will probably meet in two weeks' time. - Helen Greig
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Olympic team naming delayed
Wednesday 2: Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee executive members were last night still going over the list of athletes and officials to represent the country at next month's Beijing Olympics.
The High Performance Commission spent most of yesterday meeting with national federations that have nominated athletes to compete at the Olympics.
CISNOC president Tiki Matapo confirmed that a team of four athletes had been selected however the names of the athletes could not be released as CISNOC executive members still had to give its approval.
The final list will be released today. Team Cook Islands is looking like being made up by four athletes and five officials which include a coach/manager per athlete, chef de mission Paul Allsworth, CINSOC president Tiki Matapo, major events chairperson Rosie Blake and team administrator Nga Rima. - Matariki Wilson
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