Antonio Vaitohi: from training on the streets to chasing glory at the Pacific Games

Antonio Vaitohi’s journey to becoming an international-level sprinter hasn’t been the most conventional.

After moving to Australia having been brought up between Tonga and New Zealand, Vaitohi’s love for running was borne on the rugby fields, where his father noticed that his young son was fast.

Very fast.

With no attachment to an athletics club, Vaitohi began training himself and took to the roads to hone his speed in his fledgling career.

“I sprint from one end of the street to the other, and maybe do that seven, eight times,” said a 13-year-old Vaitohi when he first began to enjoy success as a sprinter. “Sometimes I’ll do more if I have more time.”

Realising his potential, Vaitohi’s stepmother Tessa Vaitohi decided that she would take things into her own hands when it came to his development.

“When Antonio started getting into athletics I found out he probably needed more training so I decided to get my coaching certificate,” she explained.

The decision paid dividends almost immediately, as Vaitohi won the Australian junior championships in both the 100m and 200m in his first year as a teenager.

"Australia's new sprinting hope?" read one headline after his performance.

But from these humble beginnings, Vaitohi continued to develop, driven by a dream of one day making it all the way to the Olympics.

Now he is taking the next step on his quest by competing for Tonga at the 2023 Pacific Games as he aims to keep his Olympic dreams on track just one year out from Paris 2024.

The chance to make history for Tongo

The current 100m record for a Tongan athlete is 10.56 seconds, recorded by Toluta'u Koula who competed in the Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympics.

At only 20, Vaitohi’s own PB of 10.85 sees him closing in on that all-time best but the objective he has set for himself over the next year is far loftier.

“With my ultimate goal of making the Olympics, I hope to achieve a time of 10.2 or faster,” he said in a recent interview with Bond University where he now studies.

But it’s not just sprinting that occupies the time of the young athlete, whose Olympic dreams go hand-in-hand with his current University studies in Bachelor of Sport Management.

He will be hoping that the knowledge he gleans from those studies help him on the next step on his journey that will take place when he lines up in the Solomon Islands for the Pacific Games.

Vaitohi's hopes to join the select few who have represented Tonga at the Olympic Games

Should Vaitohi make it to the Olympic Games, he will join a select number of athletes who have represented the Pacific Island nation on the world’s greatest sporting stage.

At Tokyo 2020, Ronald Fotofili was the only Tongan competing in athletics as one of only six athletes from the nation at those Olympics.

Rio 2016 saw Siueni Filimone qualify for round 1 of the 100m after posting a time of 10.76 in his heat but the athlete did not compete in the next round.

The first-ever Tongan track athlete to compete at the Games was Peauope Suli at Seoul 1988. But as of today, no Tongan has made it to the later rounds and only one person in any sport has made it onto an Olympic podium - Paea Wolfgramm’s silver in the super heavyweight boxing division at Atlanta 1996.

Vaitohi is already one of the fastest 100m runners his nation has ever produced and his continued trajectory in the sport may yet see him become the greatest of all time.

But his greatest dream - the Olympics - may be closer to a reality should he shine against the continent’s best at the 2023 Pacific Games with the 100m competition starting on 27 November and ending with the final the following day.

One thing’s for sure, he’s going to do everything in his power to get where he wants to be.

“In my opinion there’s no greater achievement than representing your country at the Olympics and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got to make it happen,” he said.