Three days late, but they won

a medal and plenty of friends

The team that won the greatest number of friends at the Games was undoubtedly the tiny Cook Islands contingent, which did not arrive in Noumea until the Games had been in progress for three days.

Arrangements had been made 18 months earlier for the team to fly out of Rarotonga on a special flight of Polynesian Airlines. But when that company’s aircraft were banned from the Rarotonga-Apia route for technical reasons, other plans had to be made.

One after another, these plans fell through, and the team three athletes, 19 netball players and two managers—finally left Rarotonga in a New Zealand Air Force plane at 15 minutes’ notice.

It had been intended all along to bring several boxers and a tennis team, too, but these people had to be left behind for lack of space.

In Pago Pago, the team was held up through lack of immediate con nections. Then it got as far as Nadi by Air New Zealand, and finally reached Noumea by UTA.

Although the team had been up since 4 a.m., they were at the stadium within half an hour of reach ing Noumea, and runner Tiki Matapo immediately entered one of the three

heats of the 200 metres race. He ran well enough to qualify, and came fourth in the final later in the after noon.

Long-distance runner Kau Pupa Wichman put up a fine performance in the men’s 10,000 metres race on the following night, but had to with draw after 21 of the 25 laps when he pulled a thigh muscle. He would have preferred to go in for the 5,000 metres event, but that had already been run.

The other athlete, June Taringa, was too late to take part officially in any races as the qualifying heats had been held before her arrival.

However, she ran as an exhibition runner in the final of the 200 metres and performed most creditably.

June also served as a hearty barracker for the Cook Islands net ball team—netball being the present name for the old-style version of women’s basketball.

The netballers “slaughtered” all opposition Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua-New Guinea, the Solomons and Western Samoa. They scored a total of 215 goals to the opposition’s 74.

A couple of days after receiving their gold medal for netball, the Cook Islanders were presented with a handsome silver trophy by the bus drivers’ federation of Noumea.

The presentation was a spontane ous gesture on the part of the bus drivers, who said they had given it for tenacity, good sportsmanship and behaviour.

Champagne flowed freely (at the bus drivers’ expense) after the pre sentation was made, and the bus drivers said the Cook Islanders could travel in their buses gratis whenever they liked.

PlM’s Noumea correspondent, Fred Dunn, a veteran of 32 years in the New Caledonian capital, re ported that the “lovely Cook Island’s ladies” had made such an impression in the city that if they had stayed any longer “they would surely have been in danger of abduction.”