{"id":49237,"date":"2024-03-13T17:08:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T07:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abnews.com.au\/?p=49237"},"modified":"2024-03-13T17:08:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T07:08:02","slug":"australian-born-pro-surfer-reaches-paris-olympics-with-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/?p=49237","title":{"rendered":"Australian-born pro surfer reaches Paris Olympics with Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian-born pro surfer Connor O’Leary is off to this summer’s Paris Olympics with Japan having switched allegiances last year to his mother’s homeland.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 30-year-old, who hails from the Sydney suburb of Cronulla, was picked as Japan’s third and final representative in their men’s surfing team for the Games, the Nippon Surfing Association said.<\/p>\n

The surfing competition at the Olympics in July-August is taking place on the French Pacific island of Tahiti.<\/p>\n

O’Leary’s mother Akemi Karasawa is a former Japanese surfing champion while his father is Australian.<\/p>\n

“So excited to officially announce that I will be representing Japan at the Paris 2024 Olympics!” O’Leary told his 70,000 followers on Instagram.<\/p>\n

He added: “Tahiti here we come!”<\/p>\n

O’Leary, who speaks Japanese, is currently fifth of 35 competitors in the World Surf League men’s rankings.<\/p>\n

He reportedly switched to representing Japan to bolster his chances of getting to the Olympics.<\/p>\n

“To be able to qualify for Australia would be great as well, but with where I am at in my career, (representing Japan is) such a great way to expand my horizon,” O’Leary told last year.<\/p>\n

O’Leary said that growing up he had been shy about his background.<\/p>\n

“I spent lot of time as a kid putting my Japanese heritage behind me to try and fit in with the Australian culture and fit in at school,” he told .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian-born pro surfer Connor O’Leary is off to this summer’s Paris Olympics with Japan having switched allegiances last year to his mother’s homeland. The 30-year-old, who hails from the Sydney suburb of Cronulla, was picked as Japan’s third and final representative in their men’s surfing team for the Games, the Nippon Surfing Association said. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[791],"class_list":["post-49237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","tag-australian-born-pro-surfer-reaches-paris-olympics-with-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}