Word: tonga
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...twice the Oceania open men's champion, and the current Oceania longboard champion. Steve and Sesika's 19-year-old daughter, 'Anau, has claimed similar honors, and the Tongan surfing team were overall winners at the 2003 South Pacific Games, stunning favorites Tahiti. "These victories raise the profile of Tonga," says tasanoc's Puloka, "especially in aquatic sports, which we're trying to get our kids into. Once they see Tongans on the international circuits, the kids will aspire to do the same...
...best surfers. But by virtually any standard its budget is small: its government grant last year was $T20,000 (about $11,000), and nothing for the two years before that. "In all sports, not just surfing, the raw talents are here," says Puloka. "Every time a coach visits Tonga he says, 'You've got the talent, they just need to be developed.'" Tonga's all-time brightest sports stars, rugby players Willie Ofahengaue and Jonah Lomu, both achieved fame playing for other countries, Australia and New Zealand respectively...
...Tonga's next generation is coming through. On this morning there are probably more complete surfers than 10-year-old Alan Burling showing their wares. But he's the kid who catches the eye. While the others appear wary of falling, he zips across the waves with abandon. "I want to be a pro surfer," he says later during a game of ping-pong, in which he at first pretends never to have played the game, and then begins swiping balls into the corners. Dad Steve is not ruling it out: "I think he's surfing better than Michael...
...Vason was 24 when he tried to bring Christianity to Tonga. Burling was just a year younger when he brought the country his own gift of surfing - nothing so profound, of course, though along with golf there's no other sport that stirs such zeal in its disciples. And Burling wants to keep spreading the word. Though a shortage of boards and passable surf spots will limit surfing's growth on the Friendly Islands, "If a kid comes up and asks me to teach him to surf," says Burling, "I'm never going to say no." With salt in their...
...major Lapita conference begins this week in Tonga, and Matthew Spriggs expects the audience to be "stunned" by news from Teouma. He won't be surprised to find hundreds more burials there, meaning years of work ahead. In the meantime, the bones from this year's dig, carefully washed and packed, will soon follow Hallie Buckley to the University of Otago in Dunedin, in the South Island of New Zealand - the last place settled by Polynesians in their sweeping colonization of the Pacific. Now their ancestors are following them there. Even in death, the Lapita people's travels continue...