Pita Taufatofua raises spirits again even in the face of Tokyo 2020 loss

The highly spirited, and fully dressed, Pita Taufatofua of Tonga was unable to capitalise on his taekwondo reprieve after he found himself in the men's +80kg repechage round at Tokyo 2020.

The Tongan had been comprehensively beaten in his round-of-16 bout by the number one seed Vladislav Larkin but was granted a second chance after the ROC athlete progressed all the way to the event final.

Days after going viral for the third time at an Olympic Opening Ceremony thanks to his oiled up abs, the Tongan found himself up against Ivan Konrad Trajkovic of Slovenia.

The Slovenian however, proved to be too formidable an opponent for Taufatofua who was subjected to a lethal four-point kick to the head early in the first round.

The bout never made it to three rounds with Trajkovic scoring more than twenty points - enough to win by point gap - and thus booking his ticket to a bronze medal bout.

With a model grin still plastered across his face even in defeat the man known to the world as the "Shirtless Tongan" never once let go of his Olympic fighting spirit.

Pita Taufatofua's amazing Olympic journey

Pita Taufatofua has held a special place in Olympic hearts since his Games debut at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

After two near misses at qualification in 2008 and 2012, the former model finally entered Brazil’s famous Maracana stadium for the Opening Ceremony bare-chested and covered in coconut oil. He quickly became known as the ‘Shirtless Tongan’, and by the end of the week there would be 230 million Google searches for “where is Tonga?”

“We had spent our whole lives getting ready for this Olympics. There was no way I wasn’t going to wear it,” the Australian born, Tongan raised fighter told Olympics.com. “Our plan was to represent our heritage. But if the internet's coming to a grinding halt (after I walked out shirtless) then I think it needs some more coconut oil in its machinery.”

The global attention may have proved a distraction as Taufatofua lost his first round taekwondo bout, and made an early exit from the competition.

Unbelievably, he repeated his shirtless entrance four years later in sub-zero temperatures at PyeongChang 2018, where he became the second Tongan to participate at the Winter Olympic Games.

He finished 114th in the 15 km cross-country skiing freestyle race, which was an amazing effort given the major social and financial sacrifices he made to get there.

But there were more surprises to come.

In 2019, he revealed that he was aiming to compete at Tokyo 2020 in canoe slalom.

“My dream now is to be the first person in the modern era to represent three unrelated sports at an Olympic Games and in successive Games,” he told Olympics.com. "I chose kayak because it's something close to my heart. It's something that Polynesians have done for a thousand years, travelling from island to island."

However, after failing to qualify, the engineering graduate returned to taekwondo to win his place in Japan.

Outside of learning new sports and training for the Olympics, Taufatofua unbelievably finds time to work as a Unicef ambassador and a motivational speaker, while also helping homeless charities and raising awareness about the effects of global warming.

Modern Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin once said, "It's not the winning, it's the taking part that counts." Pita uses sport for the power of good, and is the perfect embodiment of the Olympic spirit.