Two months after waving the Samoan flag with pride at the World Championships, where he won the nation’s first medal at the event, bronze medallist Alex Rose has penned an emotional letter to Samoa reflecting on the journey that led him to the podium in Tokyo.

In the letter published by World Athletics, Rose wrote that it had been 13 years since he first wore the Samoan uniform. “The Southern Cross on the flag was an unfamiliar constellation, not visible from my small hometown in West Branch, Michigan,” he said. “I remember being nervous, feeling a bit like an outsider – a palagi in unfamiliar territory. But from the moment that I met my first team manager Vaovai Tupu, may he rest in peace, and the rest of the athletes from Team Samoa, I truly felt at home.”

Rose used the letter to honour the people and culture that shaped his athletic career. “Throughout the years competing and visiting Samoa and many other Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand, I was shown the true meaning of our Fa'a Samoa,” he wrote. “The love and respect that every person is given, the sense of loyalty and fierce pride for our country, and the importance of community and faith. These experiences have forever changed me.”

He said he had once dreamed of walking into a stadium with the Samoan flag draped across his shoulders and a medal around his neck. “On one magical night in Tokyo… I had the honour of doing just that,” he wrote.

Rose won Samoa’s first ever World Championships medal with a 66.96 metre throw in September, a moment that was widely celebrated across the country. But in his letter, he emphasised that the achievement belonged not only to him but to Samoa.

“Thank you, Samoa, for believing in me,” he wrote. “Fa'afetai lava, Samoa, for helping me embrace our Fa'a Samoa. The Southern Cross on my jersey is no longer unfamiliar. It rests close to my heart, where it has always belonged.”