Hopefully things will turn for the better to you and all Tongans...

The legend himself!

Take care GOAT! 👊

This was the greatest sports story I had never heard! You're my Olympics hero :) I hope that you and other Tongans will get your life together... Cheers from actually cold Finland 😊🇫🇮

not really. if you are the only "athlete" in your country its much easier to qualify, than if there are 100 000 others who compete in the same sport with you. secondly, he didnt train in his home country, but in germany - which was world leading at luge at that time. so he got the best trainers and best equipment - which is both incredible important in that sport. in luge the first 10 or so are usually within 0.1-0.2 seconds. he qualified for the olympics with 6.15 seconds slower than the first... which is an absolutely laughable time. i really fail to see how this is impressive at all.

@@MrNukedawhales Only 6.15 seconds slower than the first? Wow!! That's really impressive. To be that close to the winner. The Olympics is top level. Yes, much better athletes may not have qualified due to national team size limits. But... The Olympics is still no joke. To even qualify is a huge achievement.

@@kasvinimuniandy4178 well, again... its not impressive. the ONLY reason he qualified was because of "national team size". thousands and thousand of athletes would have been faster, but they were born in the wrong country. the olympics should show the best athletes of the world, not someone who barely hangs on... and people like him make the olympics a joke.

@@MrNukedawhales never seen snow in his life and barely hung on? That's really impressive The guy is incredible

@@MrNukedawhales but when you think about it, the Olympics, especially the Winter Olympics, is a parade of the nations with the most money input into their chosen sports. All the sliding events can only take place on special tracks, of which there are fewer than 20 in the world. The Olympics is a spectacle. Why would anyone watch if each event was majority filled by one nation? It's boring enough as it is seeing the same flags rise above the podiums at most events. This guy found a way to feature in an event rarely contested by people from impoverished nations. Good on him!

IOC: "Prostitutes for everybody!"

Same IOC which allows biological males to compete as women and 15 year-olds to take drugs.

The ioc doesn't want MEGACORPS to rename people and proxy into Olympics from micronations for marketing.

I just changed my name to Nike Samsung, I'll be competing in curling and pentathlon.

Same IOC that inhumanely pressure their own athletes to lose & letting CCP pick their own winners just few days ago. Yup. Semi/Banani is a hero compared to those group of old corrupt creatures.

The underlying issue is as usual that sport is an entertainment business, especially in the context of the Olympics, is expensive.

Hahaha, I agree! 😂

The biggest scandal of the I O C Was accepting vast amounts of money from the CCP..For them too host this travesty of international competition!!!😡

He isnt top 5 though...yes accomplishment but 32nd out of 39 is not really something to brag about

@@jemshadow123 It's just impressive to qualify for the Olympics at all, especially for a man who grew up in a country that doesn't even get snow.

@@jemshadow123 so.. did you get into the top 5?

@@jemshadow123 Good lord... Getting into the Olympics in a sport he started as an adult isn't something to Bragg about? Judging by your standards you either are an Ubermensch or suicidal by sheer disappointment in your inferiority.

@@apgmk1970 he should get Antarctica citizenship. People from temperate regions should have access to Antarctica and become the best players in the world.

It does have a bit of everything!

A crazy comedy

Maybe we should start an Ambush Marketing channel 😊

@@ahmedalqassem It would be ironic if someone ambush marketed in an AI video through the comment sections.

@@Nick-mt4wknever will I not disagree

@@chinonsochukwu5259 I shan't ever be not of like mind

A way of getting attention that will always cause debate!

Found a way to make something that seemed impossible, possible!

Yes, genuine talent!

Just wanted to put it out there, If Tonga had wanted to give another individual from a different country the status of a national then they could represent them in the Olympics. You don't have to be a citizen of the country you represent in the Olympics. It's nice to see that to athlete that did go was authentically Tongan though, makes the story that much more impressive.

That's what China has done for these Winter Olympics. Half their men's hockey team are from Canada and changed their names to Chinese names

Don't think that would be a hoax, happens a bit actually, uncommon but not too rare.

@@truenoae8689 The insane thing about this is not that they recruited them, even though that's pretty strange for such a xenophobic country, the problem is that they both broke the rules and their own laws! Only people of Chinese heritage can become citizens in CCP-China, China doesn't allow dual citizenship, so they must give up their own (unlikely that everyone did this) and they didn't play enough seasons for China to be allowed to attend for team China. But if you look at all the cheating done by Chinese athletes, biased judges (one judge was literally banned from other games because he was too biased, but now he's somehow allowed to judge again), changes in measurement technique, so they could disqualify athletes, foreign athletes who suddenly became COVID positive after their flight (not impossible, but unlikely), awful quarantine conditions, bad food and in general the enormous corruption of the IOC it's not very surprising. Personally I think that to a certain extent it's also the fault of the athletes, they _could_ have boycotted it, but they decided the take part in this propaganda extravaganza.

The talent is very real!

Well it matters as long as you do not hurt anyone to gain the funding, but I think Banani did not break the law or hurt anyone (except maybe the official sponsors of the Olympics who pay large sums of money)

his goal of escaping poverty?

Exactly. And the people are still hating Adolph. I just can't figure why?

@@VH-eq2ci did he reach his goal...

The talent is very real!

All of this and wanted to point out that what he did to get to his goals did not corrupt his ethics either. It's not like he was dealing drugs to fund his training, he entered into a legal endorsement like 99% of Olympic athletes do to fund training.

Talented and determined? He barely scraped through qualification then he came 32nd out of 39 at the Olympics. He was never a serious competitor; this whole thing was a sham funded by smut.

@@hughm1383 32 out of 39 in the Olympics, ok, but how many people did he have to do better them in order to even qualify? He was in the top 39 in the entire world, even though he only started training 6 years ago, which is a huge disadvantage

Technically, everything Hitler did was within legal confines as well.

@@burtonl7239 so?

@@dickiewongtk So just because someone does something within legal confines, doesn't make it right. It depends on the legal framework. and the context it was used.

wtf are you talking about nothing hitler did was in legal confines thats why what he did was considered war crimes.

@@rawrloler if he had won the war his actions weren't today war crimes.. perspective

+"Besides of that, you forgot to pay us."

They do have to be careful or it will open the door to having ski jumpers called Ryanair Jones and SpaceX Kennedy

@@stevecarter8810 I mean they do sound pretty good. They are just mad they didn't get their cut.

@@stevecarter8810 but major sport companies are also named after themselves. Looking at Ronaldo for example

It's also the same IOC that allowed men to compete in women's football for the summer olympics last year. They're completely crooked and have no respect for sports.

It‘s good to talk about something other than football every once in a while 😉

@@AthleticInterest Try Kabbadi. Then.

diversified my ass.

Glad you enjoyed it! We hope everything is okay for you and any loved ones in Tonga 🇹🇴

What the, I’m buzzing that a fellow Toko knows about F1. You a fan dox?

People believe he adopted the name to make money from endorsements and that his bid to compete in the Olympics was part of that scheme. He only changed his name legally because the IOC said they wouldn't be able to stop him competing if it was his actual name.

It’s not really people that are mad but organizations. Think about it and you will get it.

His individual story is inspiring, but the IOC doesn't want the events to backslide into every athlete representing a megacorporation. Would be bad optics if a guy named Nestle Exxon from Botswana won the ski jump over 2nd place Wal Mart from Kazakhstan

@@DannyHotbeans Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer , hahahahah

You're missing a key element: it was financed by underwear advertisements. In other words, borderline smut. If he called himself Louis Vuitton, I'm sure he'd be perceived very differently.

Thank you very much! We'll keep on going 😊

Found a solution and made his dream a reality!

Urgh.. that's really sad.

How is that even legal? The olimpics exist way before any of those business or the IOC. The IOC are just the fuckers that continue the tradition, not the owners of it.

That's disgusting!

hello

Appreciate that!

Goddamnit now that song is stuck in my head, again!!

What’s that lol

Watch Encanto, that's all you need to know

It sounds like you're talking about China. Sochi is in Russia.

Glad you enjoyed it 😁

That's very kind. Thank you!

So what if he beat 20% of them? They probably sucked too and didn't belong at the Olympics either. The Olympics is about being the best.

That's a great story!! 😂👌 Polski-Bolski Bobsled mayhem!!!

Hope you enjoy the documentary 🙂

@@AthleticInterest this channel is the trifecta of sports, entertainment, and educational content. I’m a huge fan

😅 It was a heck of an idea

The aim is to keep that up!

So glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed the latest... and plenty more to come 🎞

Adobe After Effects 😉

@@AthleticInterest expensive stuff 😅😅.. But worth it, you guys are unbelievable

Thanks, Unc! 🙂

It's great to see you all feel the same as we did!

Thank you so much 😀

You can do it! 🖥

Thanks, Jeffrey!

Thanks, Nihindu!

Thank you :)

Arms of Gold - Tape Machines 🎶

Thank you! 🃏

I dont think you should restrict your unique eccentric satire to just sports .... you could be on to something here !!!! Certainly I would subscribe for more funniness !!!

His story is unconventional... but pretty inspirational

Hope they got up! 😅 ☕️

🐐

Thanks very much, Divjot!

Us too! 💎

He certainly did!

Thank you!

Thanks, Dylan! It is a great tale

We're thinking of them 🇹🇴 🤍

I subbed because of their generosity.

Thank you!

Found a way to make it happen!

Thank you, Stanley!

There you go 😉