David Katoatau

Who is David Katoatau?

David Katoatau was born on 17 July 1984 in Nonouti, Kiribati, and grew up largely on Nauru, where his father worked in the phosphate industry. At sixteen he moved to Apia, Samoa, to train at the Oceania Weightlifting Institute, since Kiribati itself lacked adequate training facilities for the sport. He went on to represent Kiribati as a weightlifter at three consecutive Olympic Games — Beijing 2008, London 2012, and Rio de Janeiro 2016 — and carried his country's flag at the opening ceremonies in both 2012 and 2016. At the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow he won gold in the 105kg group A category, the first Commonwealth Games medal in Kiribati's history. He became internationally known at the Rio 2016 Olympics for dancing joyfully on the competition platform after both successful and missed lifts, explaining that he did it deliberately to draw global media attention to climate change and rising seas threatening his home islands, after his own family's house in Buota was damaged by encroaching tides in 2015. The image of his celebratory dance was covered by major outlets including TIME and the BBC and made him one of the most recognisable ambassadors for Pacific climate advocacy to emerge from sport.

Sources: David Katoatau, Wikipedia (biography, Olympic and Commonwealth Games record) · TIME, "Why Kiribati Weightlifter David Katoatau Danced Off Stage" (2016) · BarBend, "Here's the Story Behind Kiribati's Dancing Weightlifter, David Katoatau"