The first Tongan female boxer in the Olympics
Tonga’s first female boxer to qualify for the Olympic Games says she will be going all out to fight for the Pacific in Paris.
Fe’ofa’aki Epenisa, 28, is the first-ever female boxer to represent Tonga at the Olympic Games.
While chasing a medal would be on her mind, the fact that she could influence a whole generation of Pasifika female boxers in the islands weighs on her.
When she takes center stage at the Olympics, she is acutely aware of the impact her performance could have on viewers from her homeland and the surrounding islands. “I take my training very seriously because I know many young people are looking up to me,” Aki said. “A young islander from Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, or the Solomon Islands might be watching me. Whether they aspire to pursue boxing or any other passion, I hope they see me and feel inspired to chase their dreams and goals.”
“Never could I have imagined a little brown girl from Vava’u, running barefoot through the streets of Masilamea and Leimatu’a; would one day carry Tonga boxing once again onto the Olympics,” she wrote on her fundraising page.
While she is the first Tongan female boxer to compete at the Games, fellow Tongan Paea Wolfgramm won a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games, the super heavyweight being the only Tongan to date to have won an Olympic medal.
