The Polynesian president announced Sunday in Tahiti (this Monday in Paris) that the surfing event of the 2024 Olympic Games would be able to be maintained on the Teahupo’o site, for months at the heart of tensions between the authorities, the organizers of the Olympic Games and local populations. “The solution that we managed to get adopted this evening allows the Olympics to be held here and for the WSL (World Surf League) to maintain an annual stage of the world tour,” rejoiced Moetai Brotherson to AFP, following a meeting with environmental associations.
In Teahupo’o on the Tahiti peninsula, a site known worldwide for its famous wave and its transparent waters, the replacement of a wooden tower with an aluminum structure for the judges has been a source of tension for months.
During technical tests on December 1, a barge planned for the installation of this new tower broke coral, pushing the Polynesian government to pause the work. The test had been “poorly prepared”, criticized the Minister of Sports and Olympics, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. But Moetai Brotherson presented on Sunday a work schedule which should result in a functional tower on May 13, a few days before the WSL world tour stop. This competition will serve as a test before the Olympic Games in the summer.
An aluminum tower reduced in size and weight
The Polynesian president was delighted to have obtained the “unanimous support of all the mayors, the surfing federation and even the associations, apart from one, and a surfer, who thinks he represents the surfing community”.
This Tahitian surfer, Lorenzo Avvenenti, affirmed that “the biggest names in surfing like Kelly Slater, Gabriel Medina, Felipe Toledo and Carissa Moore have signed the petition against the foundations and the aluminum tower”. Moetai Brotherson, however, believed that they had signed it without having the “right information”. “The current position is that we don’t want any new foundations,” recalled the president of the environmental protection association Vai ara o Teahupoo, Cindy Otcenasek, on the local channel TNTV.
The aluminum tower has been reduced in size and weight compared to the original project, but technicians nevertheless believe that further drilling into the coral is necessary. Other activists, however, recognized the government’s “efforts” to preserve the environment.
Tony Estanguet remains “confident”
“We can no longer go back, we are doing the Games, we must move forward together,” declared during the meeting Annick Paofai, president of the Association for the Defense of Fenua ‘aihere, the preserved nature area where find the site. This almost unanimous support for maintaining the event in Teahupo’o was welcomed this Monday by the head of the Olympic Organizing Committee (Cojo), Tony Estanguet.
Work to mark access to the site will be carried out by specialists who each year take care of assembling the wooden judges’ tower as part of the competition organized by the WSL. This channel thus created will provide access “to the work so that a new test can be carried out with a new barge” while taking care “not to degrade the corals”, specified the former Olympic champion.
The marking work should begin “this week”, specified Tony Estanguet, and “first tests” will be carried out with the new barge “so that the work can begin by the end of the year”. “There was still a little room for maneuver in the schedule, which allows us today to remain confident that the tower can be delivered by the month of May,” he said.