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Pita Taufatofua, the ‘Shirtless Tongan,’ just qualified for his third Olympics

Andrew Cuomo

Remember the shirtless, oiled-up Tongan man from the past two Olympics?

Well, he’s coming back.

Pita Taufatofua, the Tongan athlete who received immense attention after going shirtless during the Parade of Nations in the past two Olympics, just qualified for the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

The qualification came for taekwondo, after winning gold in the M+80kg on Saturday.

The summer will be Taufatofua’s second Olympic appearance for taekwondo. But he told CNN last year that his goal in 2020 is to compete in three unrelated Olympic sports and participate in two different sports in the same Olympics.

At the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in 2018, Taufatofua represented Tonga in cross-country skiing.

So this time, he’s aiming for two sports. Now that he’s qualified for taekwondo, next up is kayaking, which he has been training for about a year.

“I just love being out on the ocean, being out at sea. It’s a sport that excites me. I haven’t learned it yet, but it excites me at the same time,” he told CNN last year, about the sport.

As for whether this means we’ll have even more shiny shirtlessness, we’ll have to wait and see.

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