Get to know Michelle Tau; she is a Lesotho model turned Olympic athlete. In 2017, she was crowned Miss Lesotho before going on to finish among the top three in an international pageant. Seven years later, she is her country’s top taekwondo athlete and participated in the just-ended Paris Olympics.
“The fact that I was into modeling and then into taekwondo, it was confusing for a lot of people. It still is,” she admitted in an interview with Olympics.com. “Back then, as a girl going into taekwondo, a lot of people would just be like, ‘this is not a girl’s sport. This is like for boys. Do you want to be a boy? What are you trying to do?’
“I switch when I go into taekwondo. And then when I come out of it, I’m soft again. I feel like we have a lot of personalities, we are different beings, and we just need to explore who we are,” she further noted.
RELATED STORIES
Venturing into taekwondo was no accident for Tau. She comes from a family where the sport is more like a way of life. Her father, John Molise Tau, was a national taekwondo legend. He passed away when Tau was young, but she grew up admiring his medals. Her mother was in the national team along with her father.
“My dad, he’s like a hero in the country because he’s been to the African Games championships. He has a World Military Games medal.”
She describes herself as a soft and shy person, but when in the ring, she is a beast. “I switch when I go into taekwondo. And then when I come out of it, I’m soft again. I feel like we have a lot of personalities; we are different beings, and we just need to explore who we are,” she noted.
Her journey towards the Olympics became clear when she earned a quota in the women’s -49 kg [flyweight] to the Paris Games at the 2024 African Qualifying event in Dakar.
“When I went to bed after qualifying, I was in shock. I always felt like I’m going to wake up, and it’s going to be like a dream. Until I was like, It’s real, it’s happening,” she said.
“Just to go to the Olympics and just to be on that mat means that everything is possible. It means that I’m just a girl from Africa; I’m from Lesotho, and today I would be on the mat of the Olympics; not everyone can achieve that,” concluded the athlete.
At the Paris Games, she became one of four Basotho taekwondo athletes to fight at the Games and the third woman to qualify after Likeleli Alinah Thamae in 2000 and Lineo Mochesane in 2004.
In all, Tau, who lost to her Iran opponent on Wednesday, became the first taekwondo athlete from her nation to qualify for the Olympics in 20 years
