{"id":317,"date":"2018-02-05T13:12:14","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T12:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=317"},"modified":"2018-02-05T13:12:37","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T12:12:37","slug":"nothings-impossible-tongas-lone-skier-strikes-out-for-olympic-glory-in-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=317","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Nothing&#8217;s impossible&#8217;: Tonga\u2019s lone skier strikes out for Olympic glory in South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pita Taufatofua was in his fourth decade when he first touched snow. By then, he had already decided that he wanted to be an Olympic cross-country skier and was well on his way to realising his dream.<\/p>\n<p>This week, Taufatofua\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2018\/jan\/21\/pita-taufatofua-tonga-winter-olympics-skiier-shirtless\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">will become the first Tongan ever\u00a0<\/a>to compete in the cross-country event at a Winter Olympics when he straps on his skis in Pyeongchang. But his journey from the beaches of the South Pacific to the starting gate in South Korea has been far from textbook.<\/p>\n<p>The world first saw Taufatofua as an oiled up flag-bearer wearing a necklace of shark\u2019s teeth and a Ta\u02bbovala [a traditional Tongan skirt] during the opening ceremony of the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio. There, he was competing in taekwondo and was beaten 16-1 in his first match.<\/p>\n<p>Despite failing to win a medal, Taufatofua shot to prominence and the former youth counsellor was inundated with modelling contracts, offers from Hollywood and sponsorship deals.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"img-2\" class=\"element element-image img--landscape fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" data-component=\"image\" data-media-id=\"9ffdbeb3c36b342b0422eb1ea99053bc875074e1\"><figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But Taufatofua was not interested in fame. Instead, he ditched taekwondo and took up cross-country skiing, despite hailing from a country where the average annual temperature is 25 degrees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was thrown into a lot of big and great opportunities, in Hollywood stuff, modelling stuff,\u201d says Taufatofua, speaking from his brother\u2019s London flat where he was taking a two-day break from training in Iceland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut for me, at that time, my goal was, what\u2019s my next big challenge? What is completely impossible, what can\u2019t be done \u2013 that\u2019s what I want to do. And I found cross-country skiing.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-pullquote element--supporting\"><span class=\"inline-garnett-quote inline-icon \">\u00a0<\/span>Taufatofua is one of seven siblings, his father an agricultural worker, his mother a nurse. The death of one of his sisters when he was a young boy crystallised his desire to make the most out of life,and chasing seemingly impossible dreams has been the driving force on his 20-year journey to the Olympics.<\/aside>\n<p>In early 2017 Taufatofua strapped planks of wood to his feet and began running up sand hills, spending his evenings alone watching Youtube videos of the world\u2019s best skiers.<\/p>\n<p>Taufatofua shed weight, dropping 15kg to weigh in at 75kg \u2013 close to the level that most cross-country skiers maintain, making them lighter and faster on the slopes.<\/p>\n<p>Graduating from wooden planks to roller skis, he relished the challenge of the frigid foreign sport, the excitement of trying to prove his sceptics wrong, and the extreme mental and physical exhaustion his new passion offered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo me it is not crazy at all, it seems really normal to me [switching sports],\u201d says Taufatofua.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one is in the same job a few years later, very few people are in the same house a few years later. Life is changing and evolving, it is not stagnant. And sport is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape \" data-component=\"image\" data-media-id=\"7ed5b5afa31a69082806a4236cf0528f508b4ddb\"><figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Taufatofua, who is now based in Brisbane, has spent the last year training in the northern hemisphere in minus 15-20C conditions, learning the art of cross-country skiing, something he says most of his competitors started \u201cstraight out of the womb\u201d.<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--inline1\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--inline ad-slot--inline1 ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot inline1\" data-name=\"inline1\" data-mobile=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|fluid\" data-desktop=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|620,1|620,350|fluid\" data-google-query-id=\"CPGbhbPfjtkCFc8TGwodN9MIoQ\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/59666047\/theguardian.com\/world\/article\/ng_0__container__\" class=\"ad-slot__content\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Living in cheap hostels and eating basic meals of tuna and pasta, the 34-year-old has only been able to afford one pair of skis and one knob of wax, but that didn\u2019t stop him qualifying for the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang; a gobsmacking achievement for a Pacific Islander who hadn\u2019t seen snow until a couple of years ago, and is only the second Tongan ever to qualify for the Winter Olympics (Bruno Banani competed in luge in 2014).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs it a level playing field? Absolutely not. Do I let that get to me? Absolutely not. I know sports is \u2026 rarely is it ever level. But if I start thinking about that I am stuck there,\u201d says Taufatofua, who has started<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/help-tonga-to-the-winter-olympics\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">\u00a0a go-fund-me page to raise funds for the winter Olympics.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cA year ago, everyone was saying this is impossible. But when you come from\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/tonga\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Tonga<\/a>\u00a0or the Pacific Islands we don\u2019t see things the same way, we don\u2019t see anything as impossible. We are very positive in that regards and we are very resourceful. We are a developing country so we just try to find ways of succeeding however we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taufatofua is hopeful but not delusional about his chances in Pyeongchang. Attending is already the icing on the cake.<\/p>\n<p>With a rigidly optimistic outlook, Taufatofua has a self-help book in the works and hasn\u2019t ruled out a return to the summer Olympics in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIts pretty clear we\u2019re misfits in the competition. It gets stuck in your mind that you need to do something &#8211; to prove yourself in some way. And that\u2019s not just for me, but for all the exotic and small countries, for the whole Pacific Islands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/feb\/05\/nothings-impossible-tongas-lone-skier-strikes-out-for-olympic-glory-in-south-korea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pita Taufatofua was in his fourth decade when he first touched snow. By then, he had already decided that he wanted to be an Olympic cross-country skier and was well on his way to realising his dream. This week, Taufatofua\u00a0will become the first Tongan ever\u00a0to compete in the cross-country event at a Winter Olympics when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}