This is the tower of discord. An aluminum tower, intended for the judges of the Olympic Games (OJ) and a few cameras. With its foundations which will have to be drilled into the coral, it concentrates all the opposition in Tahiti, where the surfing events of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games are to take place: those of ecologists, surfers and even local fishermen. Everyone hoped to see the brave wooden tower which has been in operation for two decades, for the annual events of the World Surf League (WSL) – the world surfing circuit – in Teahupoo. “Even during the “code red” in 2011, with a series of waves at 15 meters, the tower held up,” recalls the Tahitian surfer Matahi Drollet, whose the video against the aluminum towerposted at the end of October on Instagram, spread the protests internationally.
Until last month, the opponents were discreet. The inhabitants of the small village of Teahupoo, on the south coast of the Taiarapu peninsula, expressed their concern when Paris 2024 selected their emblematic wave – one of the most beautiful on the planet. They live at PK0, kilometer zero. Beyond that, there is no more road. Their village is the end of the world. Authentic Polynesia, far from the traffic jams of Papeete. A rural life, between the fa’a’apu (agriculture) and fishing, at sea and in the lagoon. They were quickly reassured by the Olympic Organizing Committee (Cojop): the work would be respectful of their environment, nothing would distort their village.
The isolation of Teahupoo still forced a few cuts in the ecological commitments of the Games: the athletes will thus be housed in a cruise ship anchored in Vairao Bay, a stone’s throw from the emblematic wave. Due to the lack of a hotel nearby, this solution was the only one able to offer accommodation less than forty-five minutes from the competition site, which is required by the specifications of the Olympic Games.
At Teahupoo, “everyone is for the Games”
And then there was the tower. The old one was not up to Olympic standards; the new one had to have an air-conditioned room for the servers, fiber optics, toilets and pipes in the lagoon for their evacuation. However, this tower is higher and twice as heavy as the previous one. It therefore needs more solid bases, dug into the coral. Surfers fear irremediable destruction of the underwater relief that shapes their wave. If the coral is attacked, fishermen fear ciguatera, a disease transmitted by fish from the lagoon. Several hundred residents of the peninsula demonstrated on October 15 against the new tower.
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