By Talya Minsberg
Photographs and videos by Ben Thouard
Animations by Kyutae Lee
The surf at the Tokyo Olympics was unremarkable at best, with conditions that could be described as unpredictable slosh. It was nearly impossible for competitors to show the kind of awe-inspiring surfing techniques they were capable of. Organizers for the Paris Olympics sought to change that. So this year’s surf competition will take place 10,000 miles away, off the coast of Tahiti in French Polynesia, at Teahupo’o — one of the most dangerous and deadly surf breaks in the world.
The waves at Teahupo’o — which roughly translates to “wall of skulls” — can range from five feet to a death-defying 50 feet. “If you use a ski or snowboard analogy, it’s not even a double black diamond run,” Kevin Wallis, the director of forecasting at Surfline, a surf forecasting site, says. “It’s like going into the Alaskan backcountry and riding some huge mountain.” If the goal at the last Olympic surfing contest was to score big on highly technical maneuvers like aerials, the goal at this year’s games will be to simply survive.
Before each round of competition, a motorized personal watercraft will take surfers about half a mile offshore, where they will wait for the perfect wave. They need to be correctly positioned so that they can begin paddling and then drop into the wave at precisely the right moment. If they survive that drop, they will be trying to slide down a wall of water and maneuver themselves directly into the wave’s belly.
Up to 50 feet
Less than 3 feet
Surfers who make it into the barrel find themselves with a powerful wall of water overhead …
… and less than knee-deep water between them and the sharp coral reef below.
If any one thing goes wrong — and something often does — the surfers are in for a beating.
For the competitors, there is very little room for error. “It’s like being in a massive tumble dryer or washing machine, but with reef,” Jack Robinson, an Australian Olympic surfer, says.
The tremendous power and weight of the wave can send surfers whirling through air and water before they are held down under several successive waves or dragged over the sharp reef. The luckiest shake off the wipeout and return to the competition. But others at Teahupo’o have suffered head injuries, punctured lungs, broken ribs or gashes that demand dozens of stitches. Many have nearly drowned; and a few have even been killed.
For those who haven’t surfed much in French Polynesian waters, the peaceful and picturesque setting — a quiet fishing village, surrounded by lush mountains, with a soft mist often settling in the valley between them — can disguise the dramatic conditions of Teahupo’o’s ocean floor, which make the surf both exhilarating and tremendously dangerous.
Less than a half mile off shore, the water is some 1,000 feet deep.
When the deep, open ocean abruptly meets the shallow reef below, a wall of water juts up, creating the heavy, hollow barrel of the wave.
Simultaneously, the water receding from the shore helps create the “curl” that most people think of when they picture a wave.
To exit the wave, a surfer needs to maneuver their board to avoid getting knocked down by the spit of the barrel as it closes.
Surfing is the only Olympic sport that depends entirely on day-to-day forecasting. Over the course of a 10-day holding period, from July 27 to Aug. 5, a team of forecasters will assess the likely surf conditions throughout each day to determine the most suitable time for competition. On any given day, the Tahitian government could issue a Code Red, designating the surf as too dangerous for athletes and watercraft. Or there could be a swell so small that forecasters worry about a lack of Olympic-worthy waves.
Riding Teahupo’o, Brisa Hennessy, an Olympic surfer from Costa Rica, says, is “riding this wave of heaven and death.” When they discuss what it will take to win these Olympics, they speak not just of training regimens but also of the essence of the place itself. To surf Teahupo’o is to respect Teahupo’o — and to surf Teahupo’o well is to connect deeply with the land, the sea and the people around it. “It’s very, very humbling,” Carissa Moore, an American gold medalist, says. “The minute you don’t respect mother nature, it’s going to swipe you off your feet.”
Talya Minsberg is a reporter covering fitness and wellness for The Times. She has reported on the Olympics in Pyeongchang, Tokyo and Beijing.
Ben Thouard is a photographer in Tahiti, originally from France. He has been creating images of the ocean since he was a teenager. He is the author of two books of photography, ‘‘Surface’’ and ‘‘Turbulences.’’
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