‘A liquid tightrope’: A look at the stunning and dangerous waves surfers will ride at Olympics

July 27, 2024 Canuck

Building a relationship with the wave.

That’s what Canadian Olympic surfer Sanoa Dempfle-Olin has been doing for the last few days in Teahupo’o, a village on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti that will host Olympic surfing events.

The island is almost 16,000 kilometres away from Paris and boasts some of the biggest, and most dangerous, waves in the world.

That requires competitors to spend lots of time getting familiar with the nuances of the conditions in Teahupo’o. The Canadians trained there in September, and 19-year-old Dempfle-Olin, the only Canadian to qualify for Olympic surfing, has been back another four times since then.

A blonde woman with her arms crossed smiles at the camera. — Dempfle-Olin, 19, will be the first Canadian to compete in Olympic surfing. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

“A tightrope is basically what they’re riding here, a liquid tightrope,” Dom Domic, the executive director of Surf Canada, told CBC Sports as the waves crashed behind him.

“You want to be as deep as possible and still make it out.”

Why is surfing happening so far away from Paris?

The answer is simple: The conditions are better in Tahiti.

In Teahupo’o, where it’s winter, the swell originates from wind blowing, from low-pressure systems spinning off Antarctica, according to Fernando Aguerre, president of the International Surfing Association.

“They are the same swells that make amazing waves this time of the year in Bali or in South Africa or in Australia or the West Coast of the Americas,” he said, describing the surfing in Teahupo’o as the “Mount Everest” of the sport.

Teahupo’o also has “a super shallow live reef break” with really heavy water, Domic said.

That creates a big barrel, which is when the wave forms almost a tunnel around the surfer. That’s what leads to the stunning visuals of surfers who look like they’re being swallowed whole by monster waves.

A surfer rides a wave. — Japan’s Connor O’Leary rides a wave during a training session ahead of the Olympic surfing events. Teahupoʻo is known for its barrel waves, the term used when the wave forms almost a tunnel around the surfer. (Ed Sloane/Pool Photo via The Associated Press)

“That’s what’s going to score the biggest points, and that puts you also in the most critical, highest point of jeopardy,” Domic said. “Risk-reward, right?”

How it works

Surfing debuted in the Tokyo Olympics, but this is the first time a Canadian will compete in the sport at the Games.

This year’s Games will include a women’s shortboard event and a men’s shortboard event, each with 24 competitors. Both are scheduled to begin on Saturday, though the competition is dependent on the weather in Tahiti, which is why organizers have planned for 10 days to complete the competition.

The event will be stream the events on CBC Gem, on the CBC Olympics app or the CBC Olympics website, beginning with the men at 1 p.m. ET, followed by the women at 5:48 p.m. ET.

WATCH | How surfing works at the Olympics:

How does surfing work at the Olympics?

15 days ago

Duration 2:12

Not sure how surfing is scored or set up at the Olympics? This quick explainer will get you up to speed.

Surfers will compete in heats in the neighbourhood of 25 minutes, give or take depending on the conditions. A panel of five judges score them on a scale of one to 10 on a number of factors, including difficulty, innovation, variety, speed and flow.

The two highest-scoring waves make up the surfer’s final score for a heat.

‘Our sport’s always been on the fringe’

While the competitors are far away from the Eiffel Tower and the sights of Paris, athletes have a unique experience in Tahiti, where organizers have promised the competition won’t harm the natural environment. Some athletes are staying in a floating village on a cruise ship a short ferry ride away from the competition site.

The surfers are just happy organizers opted to hold the competition in Tahiti rather than an artificial wave pool closer to the action in Paris.

People ride jetskis on the water under a rainbow. — Members of the water safety team move into the impact zone on a jet ski to rescue a surfer under a rainbow during a training day ahead of Olympic surfing. Competitors are nearly 16,000 kilometres away from Paris, but have their own Athletes’ Village in Tahiti. (Gregory Bull/The Associated Press)

“Our sport’s always been on the fringe, so it doesn’t feel out of place not being a part of the rest of Team Canada and the Olympics in Paris,” Domic said. “It would be cool. But it’s also geographically impossible.”

But there’s no doubt that having a Canadian competing in Olympic surfing, on a timezone that should make it easy to watch live surfing in Canada (Tahiti is three hours behind Vancouver), will increase the spotlight on the sport.

Domic hopes that translates into more support for athletes, who face significant costs to get to competitions all over the world.

After Tahiti, Olympic surfing will head to Los Angeles in 2028 and Australia’s Gold Coast in 2032, two more locations known for good surfing. For Aguerre, who spent more than two decades trying to get surfing added to the Olympic programme, it’s a perfect script.

“The sharks can take me because my job is done,” he said.

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