An agreement was recently signed with New Zealand television to bring the Beijing Games to the Marshall Islands. People are expected to gather to watch on large screens. Organised sports remain a nascent enterprise. Not until last year were the first Marshallese National Games held.

Jason, the tae kwon do athlete, is the only one of the five Marshallese Olympians who qualified for the Beijing Games. The other competitors, with family ties to the country, received wild-card entries in track and field and swimming.

Born in the Marshall Islands, Jason left for Hawaii when he was six, shepherded by an older sister, encouraged by a father who thought that Oahu would provide a chance at a better education and a better life for his children. Jason came to love watching Power Rangers on television, and when a flier arrived in the mail, advertising a tae kwon do academy, the kicking and punching seemed attractive to a nine-year-old. Eventually, he won local and state tournaments, but competing for the United States at the Olympics remained beyond Jason’s reach, because he never became a citizen.

Then, last November, returning from a tournament in Oklahoma, Jason got a call from his instructor. The Marshall Islands were planning to compete at Beijing. “Is this a joke?” Jason asked.

“It’s a life-changing thing,” Jason said. “Before, I didn’t really have anything to look forward to, nothing to inspire me to actually do good. This changed me.”

After the Olympics, he says he plans to visit the Marshall Islands for the first time since 2005. Schoolchildren there have been writing to him: Do you have a girlfriend? Can you come and have breakfast with me? “I didn’t realise how big it was,” Jason said. “It made me want to practice more, to do my best for them.”