The six athletes who represented the Cook Islands at Tokyo 2020 each posed with hand-drawn posters at Olympic venues to give the winners of a National Olympic Committee competition a unique prize.

The Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee (CISNOC) competition challenged children from around the Pacific country to design a poster celebrating their Olympians.

Kurangi Murare, Faagi Elika, Lupe Soatini Hewitt, Alana Maireroa, Theresa Tearikimana – plus a group effort from Apii Arorangi’s classes in year one and new entrance – were the winners.

The first winning effort was pictured with two-time Olympic swimmer Wesley Roberts.

Roberts competed in the 200 metres and 400m freestyle at Tokyo 2020, finishing 37th and 30th overall in the heats, respectively.

Fellow swimmer Kirsten Fisher-Marsters, canoeists Kohl Horton, Jade Tierney and Jane Nicholas, and runner Alex Beddoes also posed with the other winning entries.

Although he did not advance out of the heats, Beddoes set a new national record for the men's 800m in Japan.

“To set the records at the Olympics is epic, it’s the big dance and I wanted to show that I’m a different athlete now, I’m the fastest Pacific islander of all time now in the 800m with that run so I think I did that,” Beddoes told Cook Islands News.

“This year was different because I didn’t race at all coming into (Olympics). I had some races lined up in Australia but they were cancelled, the preparation was pretty disrupted. I trusted that Justin (my coach) would get me 100 per cent ready when it counted.”

Tokyo 2020 saw CISNOC send its smallest number of athletes to an Olympics since Beijing 2008, where four were competing, whereas the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro saw nine athletes board the plane.

The nation has participated in every Summer Games since 1988 in Seoul.

Members of Team Cook Islands are quarantining in New Zealand.

• Owen Lloyd (Inside the Games)/RK