Southern California surfers to take on world's 'heaviest wave' for U.S. Olympic team

The world’s “heaviest wave” originates near the South Pole, where ferocious storms pound the ocean surface like furious fists, sending pulses of energy racing northward, unhindered, for thousands of miles.

That force is virtually invisible until it suddenly surges up a steep, gentle ramp on the ocean floor, curls into a spectacular barrel — more like a slab of concrete than water — and crashes with astonishing fury into a razor-sharp coral reef off the southern tip of Tahiti.

Locals call this wave Teahupo'o, which loosely translates to “wall of skulls.” It has fascinated and terrified the world's top ocean athletes since it was first surfed in the 1980s.

In the coming days, Teahupo'o (pronounced “cho-poo”), just a short drive from the fishing village that bears its name on the island's lush coastline, will become the site of the second Olympic surfing tournament. Holding the event nearly 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) from the epicenter of the Summer Games in Paris is a bold move that has some safety-conscious experts shaking their heads and ghoulish onlookers licking their lips.

Tatiana Weston-Webb, a surfer on the Brazilian Olympic team, does a training run off the coast of Tahiti.

(Ben Thouard/Associated Press)

Anyone who miscalculates their course, starts in a less than perfect spot, or fails to paddle hard enough to match the speed of the wave, risks being slammed into the coral reef by all that rushing water – imagine being pushed over a cheese grater by a steamroller.

At least five surfers have died at Teahupo'o and many others have suffered broken bones and torn flesh.

There have already been some spectacular falls during Olympic warm-up sessions, but so far there have been no serious injuries.

“It’s amazing to see what this world can do, what the ocean is capable of,” said Crosby Colapinto, 23, a professional surfer from San Clemente who has competed at Teahupo’o. “It was so big when we did it, it was so scary,” he said last week, as he looked out at the much gentler surf at his home beach. “It’s a wave that can really rip you apart.”

Young women walk past a mural depicting two Olympic surfers from San Clemente.

Colapinto’s older brother, Griffin, is among five American surfers competing at the Paris Games. He and teammate Caroline Marks live in San Clemente. A third, Caitlin Simmers, lives around the corner in Oceanside, making the historic stretches of sand on either side of Camp Pendleton the cradle of American hopes for surfing glory this year.

San Clemente has long been the center of competitive surfing culture. Home to USA Surfing, the sport’s national governing body, Surfer Magazine and countless equipment manufacturers, this laid-back, sun-drenched Orange County town dotted with red-tiled rooftops produces world-class surfers, much as Lake Tahoe and Mammoth produce elite skiers.

Much of this is due to the spectacular point break at Lower Trestles, or “Lowers,” which produces magnificent chest-to-head waves that break both left and right all summer long.

They're ideal for practicing flashy technical moves (deep cuts, jaw-dropping aerials) that impress judges and help surfers rack up points in competitions that are scored much like gymnastics or figure skating.

A surfer rides a wave at Lower Trestles off the coast of San Clemente

1. A surfer performs a backflip at Lower Trestles off the coast of San Clemente. 2. A surfer performs a sharp turn on a wave at Lower Trestles. 3. A surfer flies at Lower Trestles. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

But when San Clemente surfers arrive at Teahupo'o, many of those hard-earned skills will be lost.

“If Lowers is figure skating, Teahupo'o is hockey,” said Surfer Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Howard.

Local surf coach Lucas Taub, who last week stood on the beach with a telescope and recorded his students' waves from a few hundred metres from shore, went a step further.

“The type of surfing you see at Teahupo'o is pretty much the opposite of what you see here,” Taub said. “Here, it's all about high-performance moves,” combined with speed and grace. “There, it's like a matter of life or death.”

Surf instructor Lucas Taub, center, reviews performance videos with young surfers in San Clemente.

Bringing surfing into the Olympics has been a dream in the making for more than a century. Duke Kahanamoku, the legendary Hawaiian athlete who won five Olympic medals as a swimmer between 1912 and 1924, was one of the earliest and most passionate advocates for introducing his true love, surfing, to the Games.

But along the way there has been fierce resistance, particularly from some fellow surfers who think the idea of turning an intimate, almost Zen-like communion with nature into a competition is sacrilege.

Then there are the logistical problems: The ocean is fickle. Peter Neushul, co-author of “The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing,” tells the story of how one of the major television networks showed up decades ago on Oahu’s North Shore with a bunch of expensive equipment, ready to broadcast a contest at Pipeline, another big wave that explodes just off the beach and is within easy camera range.

If Lowers is figure skating, Teahupo'o is hockey

But on the appointed weekend, the waves never materialized.

So all the TV bigwigs sat there, “daiquiris in hand, but nothing to televise,” Neushul said. “The networks just couldn’t operate like that,” so surfing struggled to reach the general public.

But these days, many of the traditional Olympic sports are starting to seem like a thing of the past to a younger generation (when was the last time you went swimming with your friends or the kids played shot put in the backyard?) So organizers have been looking for ways to make the Games more relevant by including sports that many people play for fun.

Shirtless young men holding white surfboards walk along a path toward the beach.

This year, mountain biking, sport climbing and surfing are Olympic sports, the latter two for the second time.

Surfing made its debut at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The competition was held at the closest wave beach to the city, Shidashita Beach. Located on the east coast of Japan, “Shida” as it is known, suffers from the same problem that plagues beaches on the east coast of the United States: generally small and uninspiring waves.

Waves are created by wind, and global winds generally blow toward west-facing beaches, pushing large waves toward them.

So there was real concern in the international surfing community that the Tokyo tournament could be a flop, drawing comparisons to a memorable competition in Florida, where organizers raced their boats along the coast in hopes of creating a small wake for competitors to surf, said Peter Westwick, a USC historian and co-author of “The World in the Curl.”

But luck was on the side of the Tokyo organisers. The waves came and the competition went well, favouring the more technical riders.

An underwater view of surfers paddling out into the sea.

The French organisers are taking a radically different approach. Instead of holding the competition on one of their many western Atlantic beaches in Europe, they decided to head to French Polynesia, where the promise of an impressive competition awaits them.

Unlike sports with fixed dates, the surfing competition will take place over four days between July 27 and August 5, when conditions look most promising.

If Teahupo'o cooperates, the result will be “an incredible visual treat” for viewers at home, Neushul said.

Most competitors will have some experience at Teahupo'o, a regular stop on the World Surf League pro circuit. But locals who surf there all the time and Americans like John John Florence, who grew up surfing huge waves at Pipeline, should have a distinct advantage, Neushul said.

U.S. Olympic surfing team member Caroline Marks, center, gets a hug from a fan.

Jake Howard, left, editor-in-chief of Surfer Magazine, shakes hands with U.S. Olympic surfer Griffin Colapinto.

The risk is that the wave will become too big for some of the less experienced competitors to handle safely. At that point, rather than being a display of technical skill, it will be a contest to see who has the nerves of steel and the precise timing needed to launch themselves down the steep slope into the tube and come out alive on the other side.

“I would hate to see someone hit their head on the reef,” because they were afraid to admit the wave was too big for them, Neushul said.

During a brief interview last week at his farewell party in San Clemente, before boarding the plane to Tahiti, Griffin Colapinto acknowledged that the upcoming competition could “be super dangerous” for some people.

“If it's something big,” he said, “you're going to have to risk it all.”

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