Tongan taekwondo champ Pita Taufatofua led his team in the Grand Opening of the Rio Olympic Summer Games 2016. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
The oiled Tongan flagbearer Pita Taufatofua's quest to qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics has seen him training on roller skis rather than in the snow.
Taufatofua became a hit at the Rio Olympics when he carried the flag oiled up and shirtless. He competed in taekwondo at the event
but failed to progress through the first round.
Now, in his quest to qualify for this year's Winter Olympics in cross-country skiing, the Wall Street Journal has reported the Brisbane-based Tongan has had to learn the sport from scratch.
"Taufatofua's road to the Winter Olympics didn't keep him in the snow for long", the wall Street Jounral wrote. "After competing in the sprint event at the world championships last year in Finland—"I didn't come last!"—he returned to the Southern Hemisphere deeply proud of finishing in 153th place of 156 skiers. "I was one second off beating India," he said. "That's a billion people." But there was no snow back home in Brisbane, Australia, and he couldn't regularly drive 30 hours and sleep in his car to hit the nearest ski mountains. His training consisted of beach workouts and roller-skiing for several hours a day in the sunshine and without a shirt.
