Tiana Mangakahia (Ngāti Huarere) was a former Sydney Flames WNBL guard. Photo / Supplied
The ninth-annual Breast Cancer Cure, Tee’s for a Cure Campaign launches today, raising vital funds towards finding a cure for breast cancer and funding research in Aotearoa.
This year’s campaign features 25 exclusive tees from Kiwi designers, including Kiri Nathan, who worked in collaboration with basketball star and “breast cancer thriver” Tiana Mangakahia on her design.
But just weeks after the final design came to life, Mangakahia died of the very illness she was trying to raise awareness of.
Jenni Mortimer shares Mangakahia’s incredible story of resilience, strength and “being a queen”.
Basketball star Tiana Mangakahia was just 30 years old when she died from triple-negative breast cancer.
Mangakahia (Ngāti Huarere) was a former Sydney Flames WNBL guard, Australian representative, Syracuse University female athlete of the year and a representative of the New Zealand Māori basketball team, Poitūkohu Māori o Aotearoa.
The Queensland-based athlete was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, undergoing chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and reconstructive surgery. Mangakahia kept playing the sport she loved throughout, determined not to let cancer define her.
But in 2023, the cancer progressed to stage four, and the diagnosis led to her retirement from basketball on medical grounds. Or so she thought.
In April 2025, while still undergoing treatment, Mangakahia returned to NBL1 team Southern Districts Spartans and signed on to play with Wellington-based professional women’s basketball team the Tokomanawa Queens for their upcoming season.
The team’s co-owner and chairwoman, Rachel Taulelei, and husband Walter were thrilled with the signing, having watched her career for years and describing her as “dynamic”, “fast” and an “all-rounder”.
But what mattered most to the couple was Mangakahia’s persona off court, something which they felt was critical to their team’s culture.
“Every person who comes to the Queens categorically is a killer on court, that is without question. But it’s also what you bring off the court,” says Taulelei.
Despite her illness, Taulelei says Mangakahia had just finished what she described as her best season ever.
“When Tiana came back at the start of 2025, she came out absolutely firing - it was just a phenomenon and incredible to watch.”
Mangakaghia, whose father was born in New Zealand, was equally excited to join the Tokomanawa Queens and desperate to come to New Zealand.
“She’s very curious about her whakapapa, and that was one of the exciting parts about her coming over - supporting her on her journey as she looked further and deeper into her whakapapa,” says Taulelei.
It felt like the perfect fit for both the Queens and Mangakahia, and the team’s four guiding principles - originality, hustle, connection and class - aligned perfectly with her.
The team knew there were challenges ahead, and there were conversations with doctors about how to best support Mangakahia once she arrived. The club created a pink away strip in support of breast cancer awareness and started trying to figure out how they could use their profile to help.
“The treatment that she was undergoing at the time was challenging for her, but this is the amazing thing about Tiana: she’d been challenged before. So challenges I think were simply part of her genetic makeup and show her ability to overcome them.”
But at the start of September, everything changed very quickly. Mangakahia started to feel unwell and was given the news that her cancer had progressed to a point where she could no longer join the team.
She died on September 11, surrounded by her close-knit family. They shared the news on social media, including a series of photos showing Mangakahia, the only sister of five brothers, in her element.
“Tiana was a shining light who touched the lives of everyone she met with her kindness, strength, and warmth. She fought right till the very end, showing courage and grace beyond words,” the post read.
“Though our hearts ache without her, her legacy and the love she gave will stay with us forever. We will continue to honour her in everything we do.
“We love you endlessly, Tiana, and will miss you always. #Tough4T.”
The news shook the Tokomanawa Queens, many of whom grew up playing with her, as well as Taulelei and the Queens’ management.
“I felt deeply hurt by the news, which is a testament to Tiana,” says Taulelei.
“She had such a profound influence on this team, and she’d not even stripped for the team yet.”
But in a series of events that felt a bit like fate, the work on Mangakahia’s legacy had already begun before her death and her words were set to be immortalised, helping those battling the same cancer that took her life.
Taulelei had recently touched base with Breast Cancer Cure’s chief executive, Sonja de Mari, asking what the team could do to help raise funds and awareness.
De Mari was working on the next Tees for a Cure campaign, an annual appeal where Kiwi designers create T-shirt designs to raise money for Breast Cancer Cure research. Taulelei happened to have a good friend who she thought might be able to help, so she gave her a call.
New Zealand Māori fashion designer Kiri Nathan picked up. She heard Mangakahia’s story and knew that, despite running a fashion business, juggling being a board member of WOW, and putting on a NZ Fashion Week show, she couldn’t say no.
“There’s no way I’m not doing this, with this amazing young woman who’s just fought so hard,” Nathan tells the Herald.
She also has a personal connection to the cause, losing her mother and grandmother to the disease.
But the clock was ticking and the design deadline was in two days. Nathan hand-drew some concepts that she talked through with her son.
“It was quite a lovely time just to sit there and talk it through from the perspective of someone who watched his nan and great-nan go through breast cancer,” says Nathan.
Central to the design were Mangakahia’s powerful words: “Cancer does scare me, but not living life to its full potential scares me more! - Tiana Mangakahia, breast cancer thriver, Tokomanawa Queen.”
For the front of the shirt, Nathan designed a crown woven out of harakeke, a nod to the Tokomanawa Queens.
“It started with the concept of being a queen and also a connection to our natural environment and being Māori, Tiana being Māori, me being Māori, Rach being Māori.
“All the things that you think of when you think of a queen: strong, courageous, dignified - those are the characteristics of Tiana and all women who are fighting breast cancer,” says Nathan.
The T-shirt is set to be officially revealed tonight, at Eden Park, which will transform into a runway for a Fashion on the Field fundraising event.
Nathan and Mangakahia’s collaboration will be modelled at the event and is available for the public to buy from today, with funds going to Breast Cancer Cure.
While Mangakahia’s legacy is now immortalised in New Zealand fashion history, what she will be remembered most for is how she taught others to live.
“Tiana, who had infinitely more challenges than we do, managed to see her way through, be generous, be kind, be light, and loving - all of those sorts of things are real moments for people to recognise and think about their relationship to that way of being,” says Taulelei.
Nathan agrees, adding that being able to collaborate with Mangakahia before she died was a privilege, one that has impacted her profoundly.
“The world needs more people like Tiana. She taught so many just by living life the way that she lived life - her character and her strength, humour, and the way that she fought the cancer, so many times,” recalls the designer.
“She was absolutely incredible - a unicorn. In Māori, we call them kōtuku - a very rare bird that’s rarely ever seen – Tiana will always be the kōtuku."
Jenni Mortimer is the New Zealand Herald’s chief lifestyle and entertainment reporter. Jenni started at the Herald in 2017 and has previously worked as lifestyle, entertainment and travel editor.