The Kiribati Olympic Team
What do you do when you’re competing for a country that might disappear? You dance.
You can celebrate victory at the Olympics in many different ways: you can copy Usain Bolt and do the ‘Lightning Bolt’. You can imitate Michael Phelps with his odd finger tricks. You can brag on Twitter. However, David Katoatau’s dance at the Rio Olympics was the best of them all. And what’s remarkable about his dancing is that Katoatau didn’t win anything. Originating from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, the weightlifter finished sixth in the men’s 105-kilogram Group B final. Trying to help his sinking, storm-battered country, he dances because he’s not sure what else he can do at this point.
In Rio, Katoatau explained why he had been dancing at weightlifting competitions for the past couple years: “Most people don’t know where Kiribati is. I use weightlifting, and my dancing, in order to teach the world more about our little nation. People’s homes are being lost to rising sea levels, so I wrote an open letter to the world last year to tell people. What l really don’t know is how many years we have left until it sinks.”
This is what makes Katoatau’s dancing so moving. He’s dancing because he’s competing for a nation that might not exist by the 2048 Games. Katoatau is mourning as much as he’s celebrating. It’s fitting, then, that the organizers of the Opening Ceremony in Rio devoted a good portion of the programming to conveying the urgency of addressing climate change. Katoatau led the way and wowed spectators by whirling around with the country’s flag when Kiribati’s turn came in the Parade of Nations.
“It’s not about the gold medal, because these kids can’t win an Olympic gold medal,” Katoatau’s coach said. “What matters for David is the fact that he’s carrying the Kiribati flag at the opening ceremony and the world is seeing it. It’s really about just being there.”