Tamatoa Zebrowski : 6th in the « half-pipe » snowboard winter Olympics :

Like one of the French staff of the selection had saided "6th place at the Olympic game , it is very clean" . Yes indeed! nobody was expecting Tamatoa to be there , especially with all his injuries during the regular seasons and even just before the event in a training session. Like Tamatoa said just after his final run “I was broken , my left foot had a stretch and my right ankle just doesn’t have any ligament left”.

Tamatoa had the potential to be on the podium especially that he finished 4th in the qualification phase with just few hundredth of points behind the second. At just 21 , he’s got a bright future ahead of him .
What makes his run special is the 1260° and the height where he is executing his maneuvers. Surprisingly , Tamatoa doesn’t need a lot of speed to gain height. Most of the competitors needed to start from the top of the run but Tamatoa knows how to generate speed just in the curl of the half-pipe. That was one of the clue , keeping up the speed during the run. Especially with the technical characteristics of this half pipe which was a little bit narrower than usual unlike the ones in world championship events and with the icy conditions.

In his own words: “80% is mental and 20% is physical”. It is with that spirit that he managed to reach the final.
He was boiling hot but he didn’t loose a bit of his “Island Attitude” Bringing up the public cheering , he launch himself in his last run.

Thanks Tamatoa , Tahitian pearl prince , for this “Olympic dream” . We believed in you and you were for one night the Tahitian pearl of the Olympic winter games.