Golf at the mini games in Rarotonga

I'm still on the road – in London at the moment – but managed to finish another video from the games.
The Cook Islands had a wonderful golf tournament. We scooped all four gold medals, the men's and women's team events and the men's and women's individual titles. The two youngest team members won the individual golds, Elmay Viking the women's and Kirk Tuaiti the men's.
The golf course is just over the road from Nikao beach and has an impressive mountain background. It's also got some unusual hazards - a number of radio masts with wire stays and concrete bases.
Business house golf and fund-raising golf competitions are popular on Rarotonga and we often find stray golf balls among the trees lining the beach.
Not everyone is up to the golf team's standards!

Supporter to Reporter at the mini games

I'm on the road at the moment, in Singapore as a matter of fact. It's great, food's fantastic and there's plenty to do but it doesn't leave a lot of time for editing video. Not to worry. At the mini games we had a group of youngsters from Manchester (England) who were filming Pacific athletes, particularly those who might make it to the London Olympics in 2012.The kids - eight of them aged 15 or 16 - are all part of a programme called Supporter to Reporter, S2R for short, which encourages young sports fans to become reporters and put their stories, videos and radio interviews on the web.This group really impressed everyone with their enthusiasm and the amount of work they did.I'm embedding a video they took about various spots on Rarotonga but most of their videos are sports related.You can check out more of them on the mini games website (http://www.2009pacificgames.co.ck/) or at the S2R website (http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/n/s2r/c/Pacific+Games)

Mini Games boxing action in Rarotonga

Here is another short video of action from the mini games.This one is from the boxing tournament.
I’m not sure that boxing should qualify as a sport, particularly professional boxing; it’s more like legalised thuggery. But it’s popular as you can hear from the yells of the spectators, many of them women.
Anyway, regardless of my opinions, the young boxers themselves were very proud and patriotic and they certainly deserve congratulations for doing their best.
I suppose boxing is at the opposite end of the sporting spectacular scale to synchronised swimming but at least nobody gets injured in the pool. Jaws! Where are you when you’re needed?
Plenty more videos to come – time is the problem. I’ll be off the island for a few weeks but I’m taking a computer and a hard drive chock full of video footage so I can get editing if I get restless or bored (in Singapore? England? No chance!)