{"id":403985,"date":"2024-06-18T03:17:39","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T03:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=403985"},"modified":"2024-06-18T05:07:21","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T05:07:21","slug":"teenage-athlete-dies-weeks-before-olympic-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=403985","title":{"rendered":"Teenage athlete dies weeks before Olympic debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teenage kitefoiler who was set to make his Olympics<\/a> debut next month has died in a freak accident.\ufeff<\/p>\n

JJ Rice, 18, was set to represent Tonga in kitefoiling at Paris 2024<\/a>, but died whilst diving on Saturday according to a report from the Matangi Tonga Newspaper.<\/p>\n

Rice was free-diving from a boat when he died from a suspected shallow water blackout. His body was found on the seafloor under the boat at about 12.15pm by other divers and attempts to resuscitate him failed.<\/p>\n

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Born in the United States to English parents, Rice moved to Ha'apai as a child and had represented Tonga over the years in numerous international kitefoiling events.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

His sister Lily posted a tribute on social media to her late brother on Sunday.<\/p>\n

"I was blessed with the most amazing brother in the whole world and it pains me to say that he's passed away," she wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n

"He was an amazing kitefoiler and he would have made it to the Olympics and come out with a big shiny medal … he made so many amazing friends all over the world."<\/p>\n

Rice finished eighth at the Sail Sydney event in late-2023 to book a spot at the Olympics, where kitefoiling will be an event for the first time.<\/p>\n

Kitefoil racing is similar to kite surfing, but instead uses a foil board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A teenage kitefoiler who was set to make his Olympics debut next month has died in a freak accident.\ufeff JJ Rice, 18, was set to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":403987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=403985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403988,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403985\/revisions\/403988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/403987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=403985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=403985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=403985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}