Cook Islands at the 2018 Commonwealth Games Cook Islands at the 2018 Commonwealth Games The Cook Islands competed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Australia from April 4 to April 15, 2018. The Cook Islands delegation consisted of 18 athletes (7 male and eleven female) that competed across four sports: athletics (track and field), lawn bowls, swimming and weightlifting. It was The Cook Islands's 11th appearance at the Commonwealth Games. On February 27, 2018, track and field athlete Patricia Taea was named as the nation's flag bearer at the opening ceremony. Taiki Paniani and Aidan Zittersteijn won the country's first ever Commonwealth Games medal,
History of the Cook Islands Mendaña in 1595 who called it "San Bernardo" (Saint Bernard). Portuguese-Spaniard Pedro Fernández de Quirós made the first recorded European landing in the islands when he set foot on Rakahanga in 1606, calling it "Gente Hermosa" (Beautiful People). British navigator Captain James Cook arrived in 1773 and 1777. Cook named the islands the 'Hervey Islands' to honour a British Lord of the Admiralty. Half a century later the Russian Baltic German Admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern published the "Atlas de l'Ocean Pacifique", in which he renamed the islands the Cook Islands to honour Cook. Captain Cook navigated and mapped much