A large contingent of Samoans have travelled to the Cook Islands to compete in the many sporting codes on offer at the Pacific Mini Games.
Youth and experience make up the team which is poised to be a threat in just about every sporting event that they compete in.
The youngsters who carried the Team Samoa banner into the stadium demonstrate the cultural diversity of the Samoan people who are here to demonstrate their solidarity as a people as they vie to claim as many of the golds and other medals as they can during these games. 
 At the last Pacific Mini Games in Palau in 2005, New Caledonia won 112 medals, 56 of them were gold. Fiji was second with 59 medals, 23 of them gold, and Papua New Guinea was third with 35 medals, 16 of them gold.