Tonga’s famous flag bearer from the Rio Olympics made his cross-country skiing competition debut at the world championships on Thursday, a step as he hopes to compete in PyeongChang.
His first race, after taking up the sport a month ago, went about as expected.
Pita Taufatofua was 153rd of 156 finishers in the 1.6km sprint freestyle qualification. Full results are here.
It took Taufatofua 5 minutes, 44.72 seconds to complete the course in Lahti, Finland, which is about 10,000 miles from Tonga. The top qualifier clocked 3:11.72.
Taufatofua managed to beat two skiers from Venezuela and one from Montenegro.