Excerpt and featured image from ihf.info

The Cook Islands have been making great strides in their ongoing development of handball across the 15-island nation.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oceanic country returned to global handball, notably hosting the 2022 Men’s IHF Trophy Oceania stage and participating in subsequent Oceania Continent Handball Federation (OCHF) Men’s and Women’s Oceania Beach Handball Championships amongst other events.

On a national scale handball has featured regularly at the Cook Islands Games and Cook Islands National Beach Games, but events have tended to be centred around the largest and most populous island of the country, Rarotonga, home to capital city Avarua.

However, that changed this year with the first-ever Cook Islands Handball Association event on an  ‘outer island’.

The ‘Handball in Heaven’ outdoor, grass-based seven-a-side competition, sponsored by Vodafone Cook Islands, was held in the village of Amuri on the island of Aitutaki in collaboration with the Amuri Sport Association and Aitutaki Sport Association.