Olympic surfers face the most dangerous waves in the world

Paris 2024 sent surfing 16,000km away, in French Polynesia, with a time difference of eleven hours and a trip lasting more than a day. There has never been an Olympic sub-venue so remote and so exotic, in a place where there are no hotels and where the official accommodation for the participants is a ship anchored 400 meters from the shore. Hossegoron the Atlantic coast of mainland France, has waves too flat to compete with these dates.

This Saturday at 7 pm (Spanish time) the Olympic event will start and Spain will be represented for the first time in surfing and will do so with a team with all its members born in the same place and speaking Basque. Nadia Erostarbe (Zarautz) will be the main medal option after finishing fourth in the world this year in Puerto Rico. With him, there will be too Janire González—Etxabarri (Zumaia) and Andy Criere (Donosti), including Aritz Aranburu (Getaria) as coach.

Discuss Teahupo’o (Tahiti) It is to do so from a place where luck or destiny may reserve for you the most demanding duel at the most unexpected moment. Because there aren’t many surf spots as technical and different as this one. A magical place like All England Club for tennis, Saint Andrews for golf or Churchill Downs for horse racing. sit down It has the best waves, the heaviest and also the most dangerous on the planet, comparable only to pipeline from Hawaii. Five surfers have died in recent years trying to tame a mass of water that reached 24 meters highwhich appears by surprise in unusual violence and in a Coral barrier sharp that the slightest touch leaves marks on your body. That is why the word tattoo comes from this Polynesian island and why it is usually mandatory to wear a helmet to ride the wave.

“One of my strong points is that, in the face of waves as challenging as this, I keep going,” he said. Aerostarb (24 years) to World of sports in relation to Tahiti. The Gipuzkoan surfer arrived in the best shape of his life, after being fifth at the beginning of the month in Ballito (South Africa). His name is among the favorites to win the medal and he assured that courage is one of his main virtues and he will face the challenge without hesitation. “Another point in favor is spending time here, not only in these official training sessions, but also in the previous trips we made to get to know the wave, test the response of the different type of board and get inspiration from watching the local surfers Exactly, Polynesia Vahine Fierroraised in these waters, will be the overwhelming favorite to dethrone the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion and five-time world champion, Carissa Moore. In the men’s category, the fight for gold is expected to be head-to-head at the interval John John Florence and Gabriel Medina.

In Tahiti, the surfer always knows the weather report because everyone dreams of catching the most special wave in the heat and it comes when the wind blows from the southwest. When the mass of water breaks over the reef and a wave is formed as good as challenging. And when you’re facing a wave like this, it’s crucial to soak up every little detail in order to gain the confidence necessary to surf well. Therefore, perseverance is the main virtue and the reason why everyone is lying on their boards, nervous, constantly drying their faces so that not a drop of water clouds their eyes and deprives them of the opportunity of a lifetime .

Behind the surfer’s hedonism, with a happy life where his saying goes that the best ‘surfer’ is the one who happier in water, there is one of the most personal judgment. The surfer who makes the most of the wave wins. Start, turn, climb the wall, perform impossible maneuvers, with speed, style, touch the water without it knocking you down, slide down the most incredible ‘barrels’ with their deafening noise and emerge victorious from the melee in between man and nature. Because the wave does not pass, they feel. And the surfer who shows the judges that he has become stronger than the wave, will take the high score.