3 athletes excel at Oceania champs

One gold medal, two silvers and a new personal best sprint time are the achievements of three Cook Islands athletes who competed at the Oceania Athletics Championships last week in Australia.

Sprinters Patricia Taea and Patrick Tuara, who are both preparing for the London Olympics, impressed Olympic Games officials at the event with their track performance.

Taea won two silver medals – one in the under 20 women’s 100m and the second silver medal came from her 37.45m javelin throw.

Tuara set a new personal best time in the 100m sprints with a new time of 11.71 seconds.

Tuara reached the open men’s finals of the sprint event where he placed fifth overall.

The youngest of the trio, Alex Beddoes, won the team’s only gold medal in the 800m under 20 race clocking a time of 2.02.

Beddoes, who attends school in New Zealand, will now attend the World Junior Athletics Championships in Spain later this month.

Taea and Tuara are among the eight athletes that make up Team Cook Islands to represent the country at the London Olympic Games including swimmers Celeste Brown and Zachary Tepaia Payne, slalom canoeists Ella Nicholas and Josh Utanga, national sailor Helema Williams and weightlifter Luisa Peters.