Caroline Marks of the United States won the women’s race surfing gold medal while French Polynesian Kauli Vaast won the gold medal in men’s surfing on Monday at Paris Olympic Games in Tahiti.
Cheers and tears flowed from the boats floating near the wave and from the crowds of spectators along the shore as the men’s final match ended in the afternoon. Vaast raised his arms in victory after beating Jack Robinson of Australia, who received the silver medal.
“I don’t really realize it, but I just made history,” Vaast said. “I couldn’t be prouder to represent Tahiti and France on home soil.”
The women’s gold medal match ended about 30 minutes later, with Marks beating Tatiana Weston-Webb of Brazil, who received the silver medal.
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“A whole life is spent on a moment like this,” Marks said, a gold medal around his neck. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”
For the bronze medals, it was the Brazilian Gabriel Medina and the French Johanne Defay who won after beating respectively Alonso Correa of Peru and Brisa Hennessy of Costa Rica.
“Chopes has given me so many good waves, so many good results. So I can’t complain,” said Medina, using a common nickname for Teahupo’o.
The medallists, some barefoot, climbed onto the Olympic podium near the ocean as crowds gathered to cheer them on and take photos. Roosters raced on the grass as young local surfers called out the names of the athletes who passed by.
All the winners of the Paris Olympics surfing competition are first-time Olympic medallists, after reigning Olympic champion Carissa Moore of the United States – who won at the Tokyo Games, where Olympic surfing made its debut – was beaten in the quarter-finals on Thursday.
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“Of course, I’m really sad that I can’t make it to the finals, that I can represent my home and my family again, but I’m really grateful,” Moore said after her loss. “I just hope that at the end of the day, I can encourage those who are watching, whether they win or lose, to not be afraid to go out there with no fear and not be afraid to fail.”
The final day of surfing competition at the Paris Olympics began Monday morning after a two-day delay due to unfavorable conditions. The waves in the morning were smaller than the large, barrel-shaped waves that characterize Teahupo’o and that were seen during part of the men’s competition the previous week.
But in the afternoon, the waves got bigger and more frequent, giving the athletes a chance to impress the judges with the amount of time they spent in the barrels. At one point during the competition a whale jumped out of the water and gave the spectators and photographers an incredible Olympic moment.
Six of the eight surfers who reached the semifinals represented different nations. The flags of French Polynesia, Peru, Australia and other countries flew from boats near the waves.
Although not all of the surfers who participated were able to bring home a medal, many agreed that the second Olympic surfing competition in history – filled with viral photographsrecord scores and hours of stunning video footage broadcast to viewers around the world – helped promote the sport.
“Everybody’s watching and paying attention,” said Medina, who gained millions of followers on social media after a photo of him floating in the sky next to his surfboard as he escaped a wave went viral during the competition. “I think surfing wins.”
While Tahiti has been a global destination for surfers since the 1960s, surfing in Polynesia dates back hundreds – some say thousands – of years and remains “an important part of Polynesian culture, considered more of an art than a sport,” according to NOAA.
Teahupo’o welcomes surfers from all over the world every year to compete for the World Surf League Tahiti Pro title.
contributed to this report.
