What dreams are made of

2017 New Zealand Short Course Swimming Championships, Auckland.

Nā Jody O'Callaghan

Ten-year-old Taiko Torepe-Ormsby had a couple of role models. One was American Michael Phelps “the greatest Olympian of all time”, who he watched from afar. The other, Matthew Hutchins, he admired poolside at his own Wharenui Swim Club, before he went on to compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“I remember wanting to be him and do what he was doing,” he says … and so he did.
Twenty-year-old Taiko (Ngāi Tahu, Waikato, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga) from Christchurch has qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympic team after breaking the fastest national record in 50-metre freestyle at the national championships
in April.

He has done this while on a four-year swimming scholarship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – which his childhood idol Hutchins also completed. “It’s easy to say I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.” It also isn’t lost that he may also have young rakatahi looking up to him, and he wants to be a role model, especially as a Māori in the limelight. “Being Māori means everything to me. I love that about me.”

But he’s often asked – while living in the US – if he is Spanish or Mexican. “I just want people to know, especially rangatahi back in New Zealand. [I want] them seeing the achievements I have made, telling them that they can do it. For Māori kids [swimming] isn’t exactly a common sport, but Māori have been around the water their whole lives.”

Driving him every day is the thought, “Let’s do something no Māori has ever done before”.
The first thing he sees when he wakes each day is his pounamu on his desk, “reminding myself that I’m Māori, right back to the people who have given them to me.”

He thinks of all his grandparents, extended whānau, and kaumātua at Rehua Marae where he worked during school and before moving to America – all pushing him to do better. “Knowing where I’m from, that’s who I am and nothing will ever change that.”

His mum, Toni Torepe, says living only two hours away in Christchurch allowed her and her children to maintain a close relationship with their Arowhenua pā, hapū and whānau.

“I feel privileged that not only myself but our children are connected to our pā and I don’t lose sight of the fact that many of our wider whānau and Māori in general are dislocated and don’t have the same connections that our whānau have to our pā.

Whānau Christmas in New York 2022.

“Culture, language, and identity are inextricably linked, so I’m thankful that our children know who they are and where they are from.” Their whānau values are “embedded in who we are and what we do daily, like manaaki and whanaungatanga, irrespective of where in the world they are."

Being in the US has increased her son’s sense of culture and identity, she says. He now wants to get moko done on his arm,“when the time’s right”. Taiko, who attended St Albans School, Cathedral Grammar and St Andrew’s College, says he values the long weekends he and his whānau spent on the pā growing up.

When the first Christchurch earthquake struck he remembers waking to see the fish tank he got for his eighth birthday lying on the ground. He and his sisters were sent away from the broken city to stay on the pā, attending the marae every day. “It’s pretty challenging to be away from home [now] but thankfully knowing I have them behind me and pushing me, it’s amazing.”

So what led him to competitive swimming? “My parents thought it was a good idea to chuck me into the pool from a young age.” He soon joined his older sisters in competitions for Wharenui at the age of seven. “As the years went on I realised Wharenui was a big part of me. I’m always going to represent Wharenui, not only nationally but internationally. I love the place man, it’s cool.”

His mum says enrolling her children in swimming lessons when they were young was important. After all, the country is surrounded by water. Her son has always had an intrinsic drive, being “incredibly competitive from an early age”, which saw him break national records in his teens.

Taiko also had a passion for aviation as a teen. One summer they visited the airport regularly to watch an Emirates A380 plane. The memory is an example of her son’s competitiveness and drive, and how what seemed like a protracted bet ended up snowballing.

“He asked me one day, ‘Māmā, if I get a New Zealand record would you shout me a trip on the A380?’ I said, ‘yes of course son’. He then said: ‘If I get two, will you upgrade me to first class?’ It got closer and closer and he broke the first record.”

That conversation was in January, and he broke both before his birthday in August. But a promise is a promise, and she bought him tickets on the admired jet to watch the Bledisloe Cup in Australia. “He subsequently tried to make additional bets and I said ‘no’.

I learned my lesson the first time.” But memories fade, and once in America he said, “If I make the Olympics will you buy me a TV?” “I said, of course son.” Sure enough, after selection he has a television picked out on Amazon and expects his mum to fulfill her promise. “That’s it now,
no more,” she laughs.

Her son loves winning and travelling, and swimming is a great vehicle to achieve both.

He was recruited by the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the height of COVID after being approached by selectors at the New Zealand age group championships. He started in 2022 on a four-year swimming scholarship, and has just completed his second year of a Bachelor of Science in consumer and marketplace behaviour.

His secondary school teachers would probably agree he wasn’t the keenest student, he says, but he found something he was interested in. At the time we spoke, he was writing an essay about Matariki becoming a public holiday in Aotearoa.

2024 Big Ten Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, Columbus, Ohio.

The integration of te ao Māori into society is something he wishes would happen more with indigenous cultures abroad, like in America, where indigenous people and their way of life are often disregarded. This has come up a few times in his studies. But the opportunities he has there, not only athletically, but academically and travel-wise, are “amazing”. He has been across America, and is having as much fun as possible.

“Something my Dad always told me was to balance school, social life and swimming life.”

It’s definitely paying off. The challenge of getting out of bed on those freezing minus 20 degree mornings to get in the pool are worth it too. Toni says, swimming aside, she is proud of the young man her son has become. Just like the whakataukī ‘Kāore te kumara e kōrero ana mo tōna ake reka’, he has always been grounded and humble. His secondary school teachers would ask how he went in his competitions and he would just say, “fine thank you”, even after breaking yet another national record, his mum says.

When Taiko moved to the US and dorms in August 2022, he caught a virus from a roommate that put him in hospital for a week. It was a mix of pneumonia and taking so much paracetamol that resulted in him suffering intestinal bleeding and liver damage.

Taiko competing for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“I was out until January recovering,” he recalls. His mum remembers being flown over to be by his bedside. “I see this as a great opportunity for others to see that there’s options and he’s just a normal kid who has had his ups and downs, but has still been able to achieve what he has, even after having months off swimming,” she says.

He only returned to competing in March last year. “I guess that’s why the Olympics wasn’t necessarily on my radar given his rough start.” She burst into tears when she saw his qualifying time, after being so nervous in the stand she had to walk down and pace poolside. His jubilant reaction to breaking the new record was indicative of his journey to get there. “I had thought and dreamed about that moment for the past 12 months … every night. I would go to sleep imagining what it would be like to touch the finish, look up and be under the qualifying time,” he says. “Words can’t explain the feeling.”

His time of 21.86 seconds (the Olympic qualifying time is 21.96) broke his own record of 22.11, which he equalled in July last year. No swimmers at the Australian championships swam the 50m freestyle under 22 seconds. But the magnitude of the achievement didn’t sink in until he arrived back at university and was officially invited to join the New Zealand Olympic team.

Now, with class finally over for the year, he is getting excited about Paris in August, and being able to focus on getting faster. He will spend his days swimming in the $80 million university pool until the start of July, when he will come home to spend a few days with whānau before meeting the team in Paris.

Taiko showcasing his medals and meet trophy from the 2024 Big Ten Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships, Columbus, Ohio.

His mum and dad, David Ormsby, will be there to watch, while his two sisters will cheer from home. He feels his future is very bright and has his eyes on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and possibly 2032. But his focus for now is Paris.

Taiko knows there will be many eyes on his performance there, but for the next generation of young, driven Māori who might draw inspiration from him, he says: “I would tell them to stay who they are. Don’t turn your back on Māori, the culture, the people.

“It’s who they are and they should embrace that, show the world, whether that’s through sporting or academia. Show everyone who they are for the better.”