Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the Games open last night, during a ceremony heavy on ice-blue tones and winter imagery, held in the same lattice-encased Bird’s Nest stadium that hosted the inaugural event of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
But one of the most recognisable Olympians in the world wasn’t there.
Tonga’s Pita Taufatofua revealed that he would be skipping the Beijing Games after having attended the last three.
Taufatofua’s presence at the opening ceremony of the Summer and Winter Games is something sports fans have gotten used to, with the 38-year-old holding the flag for Tonga at the 2016 Rio Games, where he was competing in taekwondo, while competing in the cross country skiing at the 2018 PyeongChang Games and taekwondo in Tokyo.
His famous walk around the stadiums wearing only a ta’ovala, which is a Tongan mat worn around his waist, and plenty oil smeared across his cut physique has become synonymous with the Olympics in recent years.
But Taufatofua revealed on Instagram that he wouldn’t make an appearance at his fourth Games.
“Three Olympics in a row I have been blessed with all of your kindness. The last two years, competition and travel has been non-existent. Not everything is in our control. That said I embrace both the good and the bad as part of life, and I do so with a smile,” he wrote.
“This time I will not be sharing the Beijing Olympic Games with you all. But I continue with joy as I prepare to support all the Olympians who have worked so hard to represent their countries. They are all flag-bearers, that all stand for that voice within that calls us all to become our very best.
“Right now I have another task that calls me, I must answer. But make no mistake, my sword is sharp and my mind is ready. I am just getting started. We have something up our sleeve, an idea, a feat, a dream. It lives next to the impossible, a place that excites me.
“Thank you all for continuing to share this quest. Your support means everything. Somewhere inside each and every one of you there is an Olympian … Paris ‘we’ are coming!”
While he’d love to be strutting his stuff half-naked in the freezing cold, Taufatofua has more pressing matters to attend to as a UNICEF Ambassador, and has been raising money for relief efforts after the Hunga Tonga volcano eruption.
The eruption sparked a tsunami, and Taufuatofua didn’t get a chance to qualify for the games, but pointed out that he wouldn’t have gone anyway with the confronting disaster his country faces.
“I’ll certainly miss it (but) what the Olympics stands for is more than just sport, and so I feel there’s some level of Olympic effort that we’re doing now anyway.”
While his absence was felt by fans at home – there was another shirtless flagbearer that caught the attention of those on social media.
American Samoa’s sole athlete and flagbearer, Nathan Crumpton, braved the -2 conditions in Beijing by wearing only the skirt-like traditional lavalava.
He will now join a select group of athletes to compete in both the Summer and Winter Games, after competing in the men’s 100m sprint in Tokyo.
Formerly with the U.S. and now competing for American Samoa — Crumpton’s mother’s family background allowed him to switch his athletic allegiance to American Samoa in 2019.
