The Fight to Funding the Olympic Dream

"Our challenge now is that we need funding."

It's not the exact words you would expect to hear from an Olympic athlete, but for Tongan-Australian Pita Taufatofua, it's been the bottom line phrase of his professional career.

For the most part he has self-funded his entire journey, a career that spans twenty years and includes various international tournaments, and two other Olympic Qualifying events.

The first disappointment in the journey to the Olympic dream was missing out on competing in the 2008 Oceania tournament (an Olympic Qualifying event) because the government of Tonga had no funds to send him.

And now, after becoming Tonga's first ever Taekwondo Olympic Qualifier, the struggle to get funding remains.

"The government is doing what they can, at the moment there isn't anything for them to give," said Pita

"But they're working on their part to try and get as much to us as possible."

But it's the early stages of preparation where funding is really needed, explains Pita.

At this level, Pita trains two to three times a day and is regularly undergoing recovery and massage therapy sessions, a vital part of his strength and conditioning training.

The Olympian needs to pay for his coach and other sports professionals involved in his preparations as well as a training camp to help him prepare for the Olympics.

"There's a lot of things that we went by without before, because we had no choice," he explained

"But now we want the absolute best preparations."

The 32 year old won gold in February in the over 80 kg class at the Oceania Qualifying tournament in Papua New Guinea, to seal his place in Brazil.

But he almost didn't get there.

"I was working full time during the whole period of training to fund everything,"

"We struggled with certain issues of finance but we managed to get given a ticket to PNG and we were very happy with that."

Pita is often making charitable appearances at schools, helping to inspire young kids in their own dreams.

He says he was blown away during a recent appearance at Puhinui Primary School in South Auckland, when the school decided to give something back to Pita for speaking to them.

"The kids donated their mufti money to us," said Pita

"And they'd never done that before to an outsider."

The Taekwondo champion says he's grateful for all the support they've received from the community.

"Everyone's doing their best,and we're so appreciative of that and we can't complain about anything," he says

"This is for us all to share, whether you're in government or you're just a Tongan person or Pacific Islander overseas somewhere."

As a kid, growing up in Tonga, Pita recalls the memory of a local parade held for the boxer Paea Wolfram after he returned from the Olympics with his silver medal.