Sixteen-year-old Zarrian Daniel Rau-Heather is one of the top-performing young athletes to have emerged from the 2024 Cook Islands Games, winning five gold medals in the open’s division.

Rau-Heather, a Year 12 student at King’s College in New Zealand, is from Avatiu and representing Team Rarotonga at this year’s Games.

He represented Mangaia at the 2022 Cook Islands Games where he won five medals – three gold, a bronze and a silver medal. He won gold in weightlifting, badminton and 4x400 metres at the age of 14.

This year, Rau-Heather scooped four gold medals in athletics and one in badminton.

His first gold medal came in the Open Men’s 400 metre sprint event last week where he achieved a personal best time of 54.33 seconds.

Rau-Heather then won gold in the Open Men’s High Jump event, achieving another personal best of 1.80 metre.

His remaining athletics gold medals came from the Open Men’s Long Jump (5.81m) and Open Men’s 4x400m Relay events.

He was also part of the 4x100m relay team for Rarotonga, which finished first but was disqualified.

Rau-Heather took part in badminton this week, winning the Open Mix Doubles gold medal – his fifth at this year’s Games.

The youngster also represented Rarotonga in the U18s Men’s touch competition this week. He is aiming to achieve a podium finish in football this Saturday when his Rarotonga team plays in the bronze medal playoff.

Rau-Heather said he was playing for his family and that he had to play well to make them proud.

He said he expected to win medals at this year’s Games, as he had participated and won medals in 2022.

Rau-Heather is passionate about sports, and participates in all sports while in Rarotonga and New Zealand.

At King’s College in New Zealand, he is focusing on football and participates in athletics now and then. He has been focused on football since the start of the year.

Mum, Olivia Heather said people don’t realise that he’s only 16 and is competing in the Opens category.

She said he had been competing in the Opens category for the last two games, not because the island needed numbers, but because he has the talent to compete at that level across multiple disciplines and multiple codes.

“The last time he competed in the Opens, he was only 14 then. In these Games, like he said, he hasn’t really been training for athletics, but he still managed to achieve three PBs (personal bests),” Olivia said.

“The time that he gave was beyond what we were expecting. He’d improved on what he’d done two years ago, so it was kind of a bit of a shock.

“I’m trying to convince him to take a path for a couple of years in athletics because he’s got the skill set, but the ball is in his court, what he wants to do.”

She said Rau-Heather achieved personal bests in 400m, High Jump and 100m sprints – clocking 11.66s, the fourth fastest at the Games – all without specific training for these events.

“His improvement is solely the result of training he does for football, so it would be really interesting to see what he could achieve with some athletics focused training in all four of these athletics individual events,” Olivia said.

“Take High Jump as an example, he hasn’t trained for this in two years but still achieved a PB off muscle memory.”

Olivia added that she is a proud parent and has been proud of her child’s sporting achievements from a young age until now.

“Our family mantra is to be better than you were yesterday in everything you do. So whether it’s in results or his performance, Zar always gives 200 per cent effort, and the number one motivation being his family – his biggest fans,” she said.

Rau-Heather has represented Cook Islands in football, badminton and athletics at secondary school championships in New Zealand.