If the surf allows, the medals could be awarded as early as July 30.
The wave is the result of a unique convergence of hydrodynamics, geology and geometry. What makes it beautiful and seductive also makes it dangerous.
“If this was a ski slope,” said former professional snowboarder Jessi Miley-Dyer, “it would be like a triple black diamond.”
Teahupo’o is the name of the wave and the coastal town, and it can be translated as “wall of skulls” or “broken skulls.” Either way, you get the gist.
Until the 1980s and 1990s, surfing was considered too intense and at least five surfers died trying to do it.
Surfers consider it one of the world’s “heaviest” waves, a description that means dangerous but also powerful, said Miley-Dyer, commissioner of the World Surf League.
“It’s a breaking reef, which means you can touch it, and it’s pretty shallow in places,” she said. “But it’s heavy because the wave itself is very thick. So you have all this water coming down on the reef.”
All this water starts in violent storms thousands of miles away, near the South Pole.
Storms release waves of water and energy that flow largely unhindered until they roar up to the base of the dormant volcano that formed Tahiti and crash onto the reef around it.
It’s that near-instantaneous 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 that forecasts and reports on conditions for the Olympic competition.
As a swell approaches, its water rises in a somersaulting motion, tearing water away from the reef as the upper part of the wave collapses in on itself.
Teahupo’o’s wave faces can range from a few feet to 50 feet (typically 6 to 15 feet), Willis explained. But because of the unusual hydrodynamics, surfers riding in the barrel of the wave are actually below sea level, and the water beneath the wave is shallow.
Athletes have little protection if they are thrown against the reef or dragged across its sharp coral surface.
If the reef were just a coral wall, the wave would break all at once (surfers call it a closeout) and it wouldn’t be fun to surf, Willis said. There wouldn’t be a long, tapered loop.
But in one particular spot, it’s as if the stream that has been flowing there for millennia decided to sculpt the perfect surfing spot.
Coral only grows in salt water, so the reef formed at an angle just out of reach of the fresh water flowing out of the creek mouth. The persistent water rushing down the mountain carved a deep channel into the soft volcanic rock.
So when a swell hits a particular notch in the reef, the water creates a long, tapered barrel as it rises and falls before dissipating.
“If you said to someone, ‘OK, create a shape that would absorb the energy of a wave in the shortest possible distance,’ well, that would be the exact angle that would form that reef,” said surfing legend Laird Hamilton, who blew the minds of surfers when he conquered a monster wave at Teahupo’o in 2000.
“All the energy of the wave is literally dissipated in one shock. That’s why it lifts up and creates a giant cylinder before it explodes, because it absorbs the energy of the wave and, a few hundred meters away, absorbs it completely.”
That means the nearby lagoons are like sanctuaries, Hamilton said. “You wouldn’t even realize there’s a wave outside.”
Miley-Dyer says the clear, shallow waters below, combined with the towering mountain backdrop, make 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.
““It feels like you’re experiencing one of the best waves in the world,” she said. “And at the same time, you think, ‘You really have to focus. You can’t just take things lightly.’”
Sally Jenkins and Adrián Blanco Ramos contributed to this report.
Sources: Bathymetric data via French Hydrographic Service (SHOM), Surfline and satellite image ©2024 Maxar Technologies.
