Why the Olympic surfing venue is 16,000km away from Paris

Waves are formed when ocean swells, stirred by far off storms, make contact with the seafloor. Typically, this is a gradual process, but at Teahupo’o, Tahiti, site of the 2024 Paris Olympics surfing event, every parameter is taken to its extreme.

The monster waves’ swells originate from powerful Antarctic storms before traversing thousands of kilometres of open ocean and crashing into a coral reef less than a metre (less than yard) deep. The result is a perfect tube of eye-watering…