Why is Olympic surfing held in Tahiti, 15,800 kilometres from Paris?

If the surfing goes well, the medals could be awarded as early as July 30.

The wave is created by a unique combination of hydrodynamics, geology and geometry. What makes it beautiful and seductive also makes it treacherous.

“If it was a ski slope,” said former pro surfer Jessi Miley-Dyer, “it would look like a triple black diamond.”

Teahupo’o is the name of both the gulf and the town on land, and it can be loosely translated as “wall of skulls” or “broken skulls.” Either way, you get the drift.

Until the 80s and 90s, surfing these waves was considered too intense. At least five surfers have died trying to surf them.

“It’s a reef break, which means you can hit the reef, and it’s quite shallow in some places,” she said. “But it’s heavy because the wave itself is really big. So you have all this water crashing onto the reef.”

All that water is created by violent storms thousands of miles away, near the South Pole.

The storms generate enormous amounts of water and energy that flow unhindered through the sea until they rush up against the foot of the dormant volcano that formed Tahiti and crash into the surrounding reef.

According to Kevin Wallis, director of forecasting at Surfline, the company that provides forecasting and condition reports for the Olympics, it is this almost instantaneous transition from deep to shallow water that gives the wave its concave shape and power.

As a swell approaches, the water somersaults, pulling water off the reef and causing the top shelf of the wave to collapse over itself.

The wave face at Teahupo’o can range from a few feet high to 50 feet — 20 to 50 feet is typical, Willis said. But because of the unusual hydrodynamics, surfers riding the barrel of the wave are actually below sea level, and the water below the break is shallow.

Athletes have little protection when they hit the reef or are dragged across the sharp coral surface.

If the reef was just a wall of coral, the wave would break all at once — surfers call it a closeout — and it wouldn’t be good to ride, Willis said. There wouldn’t be a long, tapered curl.

But at one point it seems as if the river that has been flowing there for thousands of years has decided to create the ideal spot for surfing.

Coral grows only in salt water, so the reef formed in a corner just out of reach of the fresh water that came from the mouth of the stream. The persistent water that rumbled down the mountain dug a deep channel out of the soft volcanic rock.

When a swell hits a particular indentation in the reef, the water forms a long, tapered cylinder that rises and folds over before disappearing.

“If you were to say to someone, ‘OK, make a shape that absorbs the energy of a wave in the shortest possible distance,’ that would be exactly the angle at which that reef grew,” said surfing legend Laird Hamilton, who blew surfers’ minds when he rode a monster wave at Teahupo’o in 2000.

“All the energy of the wave will disappear in one fell swoop, literally. And that’s why it comes up and creates this giant cylinder and then explodes, because it takes the energy of the wave and within a few hundred feet it completely absorbs it.”

That means the nearby lagoons are like sanctuaries, Hamilton said. “You wouldn’t even know there was a wave out there.”

Miley-Dyer said the shallow, clear water beneath it combined with the towering mountains in the background make Teahupo’o “one of the most visually surreal waves to surf.” At the same time, the maelstrom is so intense that a surfer can’t just enjoy the view.

““You have this experience of one of the most beautiful, beautiful waves in the world,” she said. “And at the same time you’re like, I really have to concentrate. You can’t just muddle through.”

Sally Jenkins and Adrián Blanco Ramos contributed to this report.

Sources: Depth data via the French Hydrographic Office (SHOM), Surfline and satellite image ©2024 Maxar Technologies.