Prime Minister Mark Brown is among the record number of players participating in the 2024 Cook Islands Games beach handball competition, which began yesterday at the beach courts in Nikao.

The three-day beach handball competition started on Thursday with 37 teams registered and 370 athletes participating.

The tournament began with the junior grades followed by the masters mix and then the open men’s and women’s games.

The Under-18 and Masters Mix divisions were completed on Thursday. The open men’s and women’s competition will continue today and will end conclude with the medal playoffs tomorrow.

Handball Cook Islands official Siniva Setareki said the early matches played on day one were really good.

“We started off with the under-18s, it was a very tight game but a lot of the build-up has made these Games a little bit difficult for some of the teams,” Setareki said.

“The teams that we thought would take out the games, the matches, by far, turned out to have a hard match with the other outer island teams. So most of the outer islands have been playing pre-competitions before the Cook Islands Games, which has made the competition more competitive over the last six games that they’ve been playing.”

Setareki explained that watching the Prime Minister compete in the Masters Mix is always enjoyable.

She said the mixed masters were playing as if it were an open competition.

“So again, very competitive with the Masters group, which is the 45-plus. We had the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands playing today (yesterday),” she said.

Rarotonga won their mixed masters game yesterday morning due to Mangaia not meeting the female quota.

The final day of the competition tomorrow will feature the top two open teams from each pool with the winners heading into the final for the gold medal playoff while the losers will battle for the bronze medal.

Setareki said: “This year we have a big total, it’s the biggest we’ve ever had in the sport of beach handball and the outer islands are picking up really fast. We just hope that everybody starts playing and hopefully we can be part of the 2029 Mini Games.”