By Eleanor Gee

Noelani Day, who has spent most of her life swimming in the Pacific Ocean, is Tonga’s first homegrown swimmer representing the kingdom at her first Olympic games in Tokyo.

The 18-year-old from Holonga, is the youngest of Team Tonga athletes and will compete in the 50m freestyle on Friday, 30 July.

Noelani told Matangi Tonga competing at the Olympics has been her dream and goal for 10 years.

“I was extremely humbled and grateful to have been selected to be competing for Tonga.”

With no proper swimming pool and training facilities in Tonga, she beat other Tongan swimmers based overseas, scoring the highest FINA points to make selection.

“It has been a long and difficult road to get here, especially being a local swimmer with no pool.”

Noelani was 8-years-old when she attended her first swimming competition in Fiji “where the Olympics became a dream of mine”.

She was also inspired watching swimmer, Amini Fonua compete at the 2012 London Olympics and is honoured to be on Tonga's swim team with him at Tokyo.

“I have also been inspired by my local teammates, Finau 'Ohuafi, Calina Panuve, Andrew Emberson, and our young swimmers that have trained and struggled together over the years, for the love of our sport.”

Noelani is an accomplished swimmer, competing in open water and pool events overseas over the years, including the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games. She was also the youngest person (14) to complete the 22.3km Apolima Strait Solo Swim in Samoa in 2018.

Her most recent official time for the 50m freestyle recorded at the FINA World Championships in 2019 is 28.67.

COVID-19 challenges

Noeleni also had an opportunity to train in China with other Tongan atheletes over the school holidays 2019-20. However, when COVID-19 first emerged in China, Noelani she was stuckin China as countries began enforcing flight restrictions early in 2020. It took a few months for Tonga’s government to get the young athletes back home via London, before the national borders shut on 23 March 2020.

Noelani missed an entire term of school (Form 7) because of it.

“I had to play catch up with school, and train daily in the ocean, with no way to attend any competitions overseas.”

COVID-19 also impacted tourism in Tonga once the border closed, including her family’s Whale Swim business, Taufatahi Charters. With no tourists, they tried to cater to the local market.

“It was tough, so I also worked part time as a Whale Swim Guide to help my family. All of the challenges and struggles have taught me resilience and given me hope that anything is possible, even when times are hard.”

Training

Noelani is blessed to be coached by her mother, Vila Day, “who does not have a background in swimming but coaches me out of love as there are no professionally trained coaches in Tonga”.

“We have had to both learn how to swim competitively together over the years.”

She said the pool and the ocean are completely different worlds.

“There are many factors in the ocean that make training difficult such as currents, tide schedules, jelly fish etc.”

To improve her swimming technique in a pool, Noelani managed to get to Thailand on a swimming scholarship to train at the Thanyapura FINA Development Centre in February this year.

She was coached by Miguel Lopez and Alex Tikhonov while in Thailand.

Olympics

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Noelani has reunited with her mum, Vila, who is a swim official for Tonga.

But due to COVID-19, they are not able to fully enjoy Tokyo city.

“It would’ve been nice to get to see outside the Olympic Village, but the restrictions are what keep us safe. I have a great team so I think we will all cope just fine, and are just grateful and humbled to be here.”

After the Olympics, Noelani will head to the United States to study Human Biology at the University of Southern California on scholarship.

“I want to continue swimming and set new goals. I also have my eye on the Paris Olympics in 2024.”