At the 2024 Paris Olympics many water sports competitions will be in the Seine, the river that runs through the city. The surfing competitions, a discipline that has become Olympic since Tokyo 2020, will instead be held in French Polynesia, a French overseas collectivity more than 15,000 kilometers from Paris. Teahupo’o will in fact be the site of an Olympic competition that is farthest ever from the organizing city: it is a place that has been debated for some time in France and especially in French Polynesia, especially after an election won by a local independence party and after floods intense in the area where work is underway in view of the Olympics.
The Paris 2024 surf competitions, in which 24 male and female surfers will participate, are scheduled for July 27 to 30 (therefore in the first days of the Olympics) in the waters in front of Teahupo’o, a small town on the south-western coast of Tahiti, the island where most of the approximately 270,000 inhabitants of French Polynesia live. Teahupo’o was chosen as the location in March 2020 against competition from other locations on the Atlantic coast of mainland France, the best known of which was Biarritz.
Before Teahupo’o, the Olympic venue furthest from the organizing city had been Stockholm, where in 1956 the riding trials of the Melbourne Olympics took place a few months later than the other competitions: for reasons of equestrian quarantine, foreign horses they were in fact not admitted to Australia.
Instead, Teahupo’o’s choice has both practical and political reasons. On the one hand, the waves of Tahiti are more spectacular than those of Atlantic France, especially at that time of year. On the other hand, there was talk of this choice in relation to the French government’s desire to extend the Olympic event to all French territories, to maintain its influence even beyond Europe and limit the push for independence.
When considering only surfing, however, it’s hard to think of a better venue than Teahupo’o: its waves are among the most peculiar, difficult and dangerous in the world, the resort has been hosting international circuit competitions for years, and insiders say watching surfing at the Paris Olympics will be like watching a different sport than Tokyo 2021.
For those who want to watch the races directly from French Polynesia have been prepared three fan areas: one that can accommodate up to 12,000 people in the capital Papeete, a slightly smaller one in the city of Papara and a third in Teahupo’o, where the confined spaces will allow it to accommodate only a few hundred spectators.
(Allsport Australia/ALLSPORT)
In French Polynesia, and especially in Tahiti, the question concerning the Olympic surfing competitions has been debated since Teahupo’o’s candidacy was presented. There are different positions among those who oppose hosting an Olympic event: some are more general, similar to those held by certain Frenchmen and even certain Parisians regarding the Paris competitions, and above all concern the environmental impact; other positions are instead more specific and linked to the independence movement of French Polynesia.
In the elections of April this year, the pro-independence party Tavini Huiraatira obtained the absolute majority of seats in the unicameral assembly of French Polynesia. The current president, Moetai Brotherson, elected in May, is also pro-independence. In many areas French Polynesia has significant autonomy from France, greater than territories such as La Réunion or Guadeloupe, which are effectively assimilated to French departments. In certain contexts, and above all on a cultural and economic level, French Polynesia also continues to to depend a lot from France.
Given the political success of the independence party, it is expected that in the next few years French Polynesia will try to organize a referendum for independence similar to those held in recent years in New Caledonia, another French overseas territory, where so far, however, they have always won the “no” to independence from France.
Surfing competitions in French Polynesia had already been a topic of debate before and after the elections, but even more so after the floods which at the beginning of May concerned the Fauoro river and the area relating to the Olympic event. There has also been talk, but it is too early to be certain about it, of the fact that the works on a bridge right on the Fauoro river and precisely in anticipation of the tenders may have worsened the effects of the floods.
In a visit to Teahupo’o after the floods, the 32-year-old businesswoman Nahema Temarii, appointed sports minister a few days earlier, he had spoken the possibility of “withdrawing the commitment” towards the organization of surfing competitions in Tahiti. In that same context, the Minister of Housing and Solidarity, Minarii Galenons, also appointed after the April elections, had said: “We could very well not do the Olympics here, but that would cost us a lot of money.”
A few days later Brotherson, the president of the country, He said a The world that despite the doubts expressed by the sports minister, French Polynesia would host the Olympic surfing competitions: “I absolutely want the Olympics to come here, where surfing was born, and not somewhere else”. Brotherson had also mentioned how difficult and costly it would be for French Polynesia to withdraw from the Olympics at that point; he had however added that in his plans there was also the attempt to review and re-discuss certain agreements, relating to the Olympic competitions, made by the previous government.
Even the COJOP, the organizing committee of the Paris Olympics, recalled that French Polynesia is legally required to organize the competitions for which it is committed, adding that the work is progressing on time and with the expected costs.
Barbara Martins-Nio, responsible on behalf of the COJOP for the Polynesian part of the Paris Olympics, also spoke of how in French Polynesia the Olympic organization is following “a completely different model than usual” for how it “aims to create a connection between the local population and who will arrive for the Olympics», for example with over 300 beds which, in the absence of adequate accommodation facilities in Teahupo’o, will be made available by the local inhabitants. But there is also talk of the possibility of accommodating many other people in a large ship in front of Teahupo’o.
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