Who knew a Tongan skier could be so engaging?
PYEONGCHANG In an Olympic upset Wednesday, the shirtless, oily Tongan who has won global acclaim and marriage proposals and bawdy tweets by being shirtless and oily proved to be even better when clothed.
At that exceedingly rare event in life known loose ly as the “Tongan cross-country skiing news conference,” Pita Taufatofua wore a ski jacket and maybe even another layer beneath and proved evocative, witty, a fine storyteller, self-effacing but non-farcical, ricocheting skilfully between the serious and the funny. By contrast, the body that got him the platform even came to seem kind of ... blasé. What an upset. Of course, he clued in areporter after war don the little-known fact that when one cooks an egg, there’s time, in between placing it on the grill and finishing it, to do some pushups.
Of course, when a reporter held up a bottle of olive oil, he stressed the superiority of coconut oil and said, “Olive oil is not good for the body. It’s only good for my salad.”
More often, this 33-year-old Instagram titan who was a sensation when he marched into the 2016 Olympic Games oily and shirtless in the Brazilian warmth as a taekwondo athlete, then repeated the buzz when he marched into the 2018 Olympic Games oily and shirtless in the Korean cold as a cross-country athlete, had meaningful things to say and say well.
It went even beyond this gem: “As I said before: If my ancestors could sail across the Pacific Ocean for a thousand years, not knowing where the next piece of land was going to be, not knowing where their next meal was going to be, going to war, then I can walk for 25 minutes through an Opening Ceremony without a shirt on (in the frigid cold). And represent a thousand years of heritage.”
The man with the body embodied the Olympics, and as it ended, he said he “absolutely” has aimed to use the avenue of physical attraction toward more meaningful ends: “And it’s not just that I can feel better, sit on my little throne and rub oil on my body. That’s not helping anyone else. What a waste of a gift. So if I have any gifts, any talents, if I have any, I’m going to use them to benefit other people. And that makes me happy.”