Connor O'Leary: From "shy kid" who hid his heritage to "role model" for the next generation of Japan's surfers
Connor O’Leary sits for an interview in a starch white Japanese jersey with its distinguishable rising sun stitched over the heart.
After minutes of lively banter full of Australian colloquialisms, he is asked to answer the last question again, this time in Japanese. The surfer’s face lights up and he nods enthusiastically.
There is barely a pause before he launches into fluent Japanese speech.
This bright and cheerful demeanour is a stark contrast to how O’Leary describes himself in his childhood: shy, low in confidence, and anxious to hide his Japanese roots despite growing up with Japan’s surfing champion for a mother.
“Being a pretty shy kid - growing up I was not overly confident - in order for me to blend in, I thought that I'm just going to try and hide the Japanese heritage as much as I can, just so I'm not in the limelight of being different,” O’Leary told Olympics.com. “I just never wanted to be in the spotlight of being able to have a chance to get bullied or things like that. So, I went to school and I tried to be as Australian as I could.”
The acceptance of his heritage did not come in a single stroke.
Year by year, fuelled by his inherited competitive drive, O’Leary travelled the world for the biggest surfing competitions while wearing an Australian jersey. As he did so, he grew to embrace his Japanese background, first introducing a Japanese flag alongside the Australian one in his kit and later making the full switch to representing the same country as his mother.
“I've had my foot in the door of the Japan community and culture for a long time now that transitioning to Japan, it was a pretty easy transition,” O’Leary said of the change. “To be able to represent them at the highest level, to be able to be one of the best surfers in Japan and try and be that person that can help win a gold medal and get surfing for Japan on the map and for people to be scared of the talent that's coming out of Japan - I'm all in.”
Connor O’Leary's mother is a former Japanese surfing champion
After years on the waves, O’Leary says he owes much of his outlook on life to surfing. Perhaps, his birth as well.
O’Leary’s parents met during a surfing competition in Cronulla, a seaside suburb of Sydney, Australia. His mother, Japanese surf champion Akemi Karasawa, was there to compete while his father Finbar O’Leary was a local with a great passion for the sport.
When their eldest son was born, the pair continued to travel along the east coast of Australia to find the best waves to surf.
Connor O’Leary still remembers the first one he caught.
“I jumped on one of dad's big boards and he pushed me onto a few waves,” O’Leary said. “It's where I grew my love for the ocean.
“My mum and dad weren't very pushy parents. They just did it because they loved it and I was their tagalong. They had to bring me along everywhere because no one else was going to look after me apart from them,” he continued with a laugh. “It happened pretty organically.”
O’Leary balanced surfing with football for the first years, but had to choose between the two by 17 when competitions in the two sports started to overlap. Surfing ultimately won over.
“Just love everything about it. It's such a good lifestyle and it's definitely taught me a lot about life in general and being adaptive,” he said. “There's a lot of things that the ocean can tell you and it's very humbling in a lot of ways, so it's made me grow into the person I am today and looking back, it was the best decision I've ever made.”
While O’Leary’s parents never pushed him to choose surfing, they did help him to become the world-class athlete he is now.
O’Leary qualified for the WSL Championship Tour in 2017 and now frequently places among the Top 10, including at Teahupo’o where he is set to make his Olympic debut in July*.
“The passion and drive that my mum has really come out in me,” O’Leary said. “I'm pretty competitive, but I guess a lot of people don't see it. It's more like an underlying thing. I get that from mum and wouldn't be here today without it.”
*As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.
A young Connor O'Leary with his mother Akemi Karasawa, a Japanese surfing champion.
Connor O’Leary: Hiding his lunch box, and his roots
While O’Leary loved growing up with a Japanese surfing champion for a mother, outside of the cosy home she has created for the family, he was careful to hide his mixed heritage.
The feeling that he was different from the other kids could flood him in a moment as simple as opening his lunch box.
“Mum would make little sushi rolls and I'd take them to school and people would be like, ‘Oh, that's so weird. What are you eating?’ And all of a sudden, the attention's on me because I don't have these normal white bread sandwiches like every other Australian kid,” O’Leary said. “In that limelight, I got all nervous and got home and was like, ‘Mum, you got to stop… Can you just make me something a bit more normal to Australian kids, just so I could fit in?’”
As one of the few multicultural children in Cronulla, O’Leary was eager to keep his differences hidden. To do so, he engaged in the same pastimes as his local friends and led an “all-Australian” lifestyle.
It worked - at least until he invited people to his house.
“As soon as I walked in the door and all my friends came in into the house, it was all very Japanese,” the surfer recalled.
Looking back, O’Leary says he has matured and feels more comfortable in his skin, which includes accepting the differences he used to hide.
“It was pretty stupid, but at the time, I was just shy and just wanted to fit in and get through school as best as I could with no controversy or attention drawn on me,” he said.
Connor O’Leary: Embracing his Japanese side
Although O’Leary tried to hide his Japanese heritage in school, he remained connected to the island nation. Akemi Karasawa took her son to her birth country every year for three to four months at a time until he was 14.
Even back in Sydney, the boy spent a lot of time with his mother and the local Japanese community. That diaspora cheered O’Leary on as his surfing career took off and he started competing in WSL events, an Australian flag displayed on the shoulders of his jersey.
Outwardly, O’Leary was still “all-Australian”, but that changed in 2020.
Before the Championship Tour season was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic, the WSL announced that surfers would now be able to display different flags on their jerseys.
“I was sitting there with my wife at the start of the year when they just called it off,” O’Leary said. “She looked at me and went, ‘Why don't you ask them to see if you can put a Japanese flag on your shoulder as well as Australian? I mean, you're not all Australian anyway. It'd be good to be able to embrace that Japanese side of you because you have so many family, friends and fans in Japan as well'.”
While his Australian wife, Stephanie, was a strong advocate for the change, O’Leary’s mother initially tried to talk him out of it.
“She kind of thought I did it for her. So she's like, ‘Don't just put it on there if it's just for me’. But for me, it was more than that,” O’Leary said. “It was to say thank you to all my supporters and fans and family that are in Japan and start embracing the Japanese culture and being a role model for the Japanese youth coming up.”
And so, when the 2021 season started, O’Leary paddled out with the Australian flag on his right shoulder and the Japanese on his left.
Connor O'Leary competed at the next Olympic venue, Teahupo'o, in 2023 with the Australian and Japanese flags on his jersey.
In 2024, he took it a step further and will now represent the same nation as his mother did at his age.
The switch also means O'Leary is eligible for the third Olympic quota that Japanese men won at the 2022 ISA World Surfing Games.
The Australian-turned-Japanese surfer had barely turned seven when he went to see wheelchair basketball at the home Paralympic Games in 2000. Twenty-four years on, he hopes his own Olympic performance in Tahiti will help to inspire the next generation of athletes.
“I feel in Japan, at the moment, they're lacking that role model to look up to on the world stage. In Australia, I'm very fortunate there were a lot of Australian professional surfers growing up and you could always look up to them and feed off them,” O’Leary said. “I'd love to be that role model for the Japanese up-and-coming surfers.
“There's so many great young surfers that got talent to be world tour surfers and world-class surfers and I think they just need some role models to help them guide their way there.”