The Cook Islands’ third athlete of the 2012 London Olympics gets his campaign underway tonight.

Tepaia Payne will race in the fourth heat of the 50 metres freestyle, which begins tonight at 11pm (Wednesday CIT).

Intense training sessions were on the menu for both him and fellow swimmer Celeste Brown as they eyed their respective 50 metre events at the iconic Aquatics Centre.

Payne will not need to look far for inspiration having seen American Michael Phelps collect an incredible 19th medal – a world record – a night earlier at the same venue.

Other super-human feats in the pool, such as Chinese teenager Ye Shiwen’s incredible feats in the 400 metres individual medley, will no doubt be on the Rarotonga-born swimmer’s mind as he looks for a special performance himself.

Brown will surely be in support before she heads to the water the following night.

Sprinters Patricia Taea and Patrick Tuara are getting thorough workouts ahead of their 100 metre sprint preliminaries next week.

Specifics such as the block starts are the focus of the trainings, while a comprehensive preparation schedule – which begins the night before the event and ends with the coach John Teiti’s advice before they head onto the track.

”The athletes are fine, kare e aere koka and trying to control their diet. We have some quiet moments in the evening going through our race procedures and daily programmes,“ Teiti said.

Meanwhile, our weightlifter Louisa Peters’ preparations are going from strength to strength – and she has some home-grown inspiration to fuel her along.

Sharon Marsters’ Year 3 class at Avatea School sent in their messages of support for Peters, who will compete in the women’s 75 kilogram-and-above category at the ExCeL.

Manager Unakea Kauvai said his pupil’s workload was decreasing as the games drew near to ensure she was ready to go by Sunday.

Luisa will be the second youngest lifter in the group, the youngest is from Ghana.

”With only four days left before her competition, the intensity of Luisa’s training has eased off,“ Kauvai said.

”That means the weight she is training with has come down to 65 percent of her maximum. This is to allow her muscles to recover in time for the day of the competition. Her training is now be focused on speed and technique rather than strength.

”Luisa is looking forward to her first Olympic competition and we wish her the best.“

Then the Cook Islands’ final athlete, Josh Utanga, gets his Olympics underway with the K1 1000 metres before the historic K1 200 metres – the first time the race will be held at an Olympics.

Coach Joel Simpson said they were focusing on improving the feel and fitness on the water.

”The goal over the next two weeks will be to gradually progress into more dynamic fast paced paddling. Today we had brekky and headed down to the course for a fairly hard Lactate tolerance session,“ Simpson said.

”This afternoon Josh is paddling 3-4km for recovery in preparation for some hard work tomorrow.

”Looking forward to the end of the week, Josh will be paddling a 200m time trial in full race conditions in preparation for the next week – this will be a good indicator of where Josh is at in his preparations.“