Why is Olympic surfing in Tahiti, 9,800 miles from Paris?

Surf willing, medals could be awarded as soon as July 30.

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

“If it were a ski run,” said former pro surfer Jessi Miley-Dyer, “it’d be like a triple black diamond.”

Teahupo’o is the name of both the wave and the onshore town, and it loosely translates to “wall of skulls” or “broken skulls.” Either way, you get the gist.

It was considered too intense to surf until the 1980s and ’90s, and at least five surfers have died trying to ride it.

“It’s a reef break, which means you can hit the reef, and it’s quite shallow in parts,” she said. “But it’s heavy because the wave itself is really thick. So you have all of this water that’s unloading on the reef.”

All that water starts with violent storms thousands of miles away, near the South Pole.

The storms unleash swells of water and energy that flow largely unimpeded until they roar up the base of the dormant volcano that formed Tahiti and slam into the reef surrounding it.

It is this near-instant transition from deep to shallow water that gives the wave its hollow shape and power, said Kevin Wallis, director of forecasting for Surfline, the company doing the forecasting and condition reports for the Olympic competition.

As a swell approaches, its water churns in a somersaulting motion, pulling water off the reef as the top shelf of the wave collapses over itself.

The wave face at Teahupo’o can range from a few feet tall to 50 feet — 6 to 15 feet is typical, Willis said. But because of the unusual hydrodynamics, surfers riding within the barrel of the wave are actually below sea level, and the water below the break is shallow.

Athletes have little cushion if they are slammed into the reef or dragged across its sharp coral surface.

If the reef were just a wall of coral, the wave would break all at once — surfers call that a closeout — and it wouldn’t be good to ride, Willis said. There would be no long, tapered curl.

But at one particular notch, it is as if the stream that has flowed there for millennia decided to sculpt the ideal spot for surfing.

Coral grows only in salt water, so the reef formed at an angle just outside the reach of fresh water coming out of the stream’s mouth. The persistent water rumbling down the mountain carved a deep channel out of the soft volcanic rock.

So when a swell slams against one particular notch in the reef, the water creates a long, tapered barrel as it rises up and folds over before dissipating.

“If you told somebody, ‘Okay, create a shape that would absorb a wave energy in the shortest distance possible,’ well, it would be that exact angle that that reef has grown,” said surfing legend Laird Hamilton, who bent surfers’ minds when he conquered a monster wave at Teahupo’o in 2000.

“All of the wave’s energy will dissipate in one crash, literally. And that’s why it heaves up and creates a giant cylinder and then explodes, because it’s taking the wave’s energy and within a couple hundred feet, it’s completely absorbing it.”

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

Miley-Dyer said the shallow, clear water below combined with the towering mountain backdrop makes Teahupo’o “one of the most visually unreal waves to surf.” At the same time, the maelstrom is so intense that a surfer can’t just admire the view.

“You have this experience of one of the prettiest, most beautiful waves in the world,” she said. “And at the same time you’re like, I’ve got to really focus. You can’t just muck around.”

Sally Jenkins and Adrián Blanco Ramos contributed to this report.

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