ISA absolves Paris 2024 organisers of blame for environmentally catastrophic judging tower.
After maintaining a conspicuous silence on the building of a five-million dollar judging tower atop Teahupoo’s fragile coral reef, the International Surfing Association has taken a baseball bat to French Polynesia’s government while absolving Paris 2024 organisers of blame.
In a just released statement, the ISA, governing body of world surfing apparently, says its advice was the Teahupoo contest should be judged remotely via “live images shot from land, water and drones” although “subsequently the French Polynesian Government decided to go forward with a plan to build a new aluminium tower on the reef.”
You hear a little alarm bell going off?
The ISA’s advice was on December 9, three months after locals started throwing heat at Paris 2024 for the Teahupoo build.
Multiple protests followed, you’ll remember, and a visit from the mayor of Paris ensued as the ISA remained silent.
Nothing on social media, no statements, crickets, as they say.
Why silent?
The ISA didn’t care to rock Olympic masters?
A reflection of the fragility of surfing’s inclusion in the Games?
And, correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the president of French Polynesia Moetai Brotherson tell the Pacific Islands Forum that maybe, in light of opposition from Teahupoo locals, they should shift the three-day event to Taharuu, forty or so clicks back towards Papeete?
“At the time, it wasn’t possible. In view of the issues at stake and the protests today, perhaps we can revise this option,” said Brotherson.
Teahupoo just beat out Taharuu as the choice for Paris 2024 following a visit by delegates in 2020.
In a response to Brotherson, Paris 2024 organisers said in a statement,
“Tahiti was chosen because of the Teahupoo site and its legendary wave, one of the most beautiful in the world. As our president, Tony Estanguet, recently pointed out, our priority today is to find a solution that will enable us to organise the surfing events of the Olympic Games in Tahiti, at the Teahupoo site, in the best possible conditions.”
sobered up a little bit and have a serious question — don’t we want the judges to be basing their scores, for the most part, on review of replays and water angles that will show the nuances of the drops, and the fins coming free and re-engaging, and all the other little foamball shit that happens when someone like JJF takes off under the ledge and navigates these beasts, most of which can’t actually be seen from the goddamn judging tower in real time?? So putting aside whether the ISA is being strategic about the timing of its comments (seems to be), isn’t their suggestion that the judges base scores on stuff other than what can be seen in real time live from the tower actually the right answer here??
Not that we really care about the merits of this stuff, but fwiw…
I enjoyed your Da Grinch piece
ha, thanks. When vodka, xmas and BG all happen to land simultaneously.
They just want to spend / distribute cash. It’s well known by everyone involved.
Bill Finnegan touched on the topic, in his memoir, when Madeira was being developed in the mid-90’s. A rush to spend cash that nobody could stop. Many, many people on the island (and elsewhere) will make a few thousand euros that they could really use.
Paris could’ve got itself a pool. The Olympics have always been as much about the building of venues.
They just want to ensure that there’s enough free money flowing for infrastructure, filtering down to local authorities, subcontractors. That’s the beginning and end of it. And Anne Hidalgo and co. may have wanted a free tropical holiday.
Not really a question of ‘the best surfers on the best waves’
With a 3 day window, its quite a long shot. It’s likely we’ll be served vast amounts of epic /code red footage whilst waiting for sets in windswept schlop.
And is taharauu that much better than ‘mainland france’ hossegor?
https://youtu.be/FDE8qXgqXm…
the big cheese at IOC is saying: who the fuck thought including surfing in the olympics would be a good idea? surfers are just a bunch of self entitled VS cry babies. if it’s not held in great surf, the surfers winge, if the IOC selects one of the best surf spots in the world, the surfers winge.
imagine how all these other athletes who’ve work their asses off their entire lives to become olympians, look at surfers.
olympics should just pull the plug on the whole surfing in the olympics experiment and throw double barrel middle fingers at the lot.
It really is rooted. I know a guy who dedicated 15 fully focused years to Olympic campaigns in a sport where the Olympic gold medal is still the peak. He came in second two times for representation, never quite making it there. His sport is one they were considering cutting to make room for some of these new ones, where you’re getting wealthy, already successful competitors, cashing in on national funding and swanning around having a good time during the comp.
surfers are not happy campers.
after training every day since she was a child, my friends daughter is competing in the 2024 in track and field. she’s not making any money at it, but it will be the one of the highlights of her life.
the IOC was organized in 1894, and since the first modern olympics in 1896, the olympics have been the premier sporting exhibition for the worlds top athletes. the construction of olympic villages and venues has always been a grand thing usually featuring some brilliant architecture and reconstruction of cities. the selected cities have always strived to improve the olympic locations and surroundings to showcase their beauty and usually greatly benefit the population.
for over 130 years the olympics have faced adversity; surviving wars, politics, terrorism and corruption scandals and still the olympic athletes are highly regarded and celebrated for their achievements and decorum.
then you have surfers.
Well put. There’s a fair few sports diluting the achievement. I heard Andy Murray describe his London Olympics as “a relaxing week at home with family.” Also, I was watching when Nelly Korda won Golf gold and she seemed kinda disappointed, which if you consider that if she’d played like that a week prior, a tournament win would’ve netted her $1.5 mil, yet this week’s tournament gets her a gold-leafed coaster.
The one that absolutely shits me is the Soccer. Because fucking FIFA can’t have anything overshadow their precious World Cup, they put in that lame fucking rule that it’s only under 25s allowed to compete.
IOC should have said “well get fucked then”, or better yet, just allowed any age group to compete and if FIFA threatens disaccreditation just tell them to GGF and award the gold medal to whichever country that has the balls to send a team over.
the olympics screwed up when they began allowing professional athletes to compete.
note: The word amateur is derived from the Latin term, amator, which means lover. Preserving the purity of the games by allowing to compete only those who did so simply because of a love of their craft, allowed the IOC to seemingly be untainted by the culture of cheating and scandal that was deeply entrenched in professional sport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
in the words of Avery Brundage, the IOC president from 1952-1972 and a staunch supporter of preserving amateurism in the Olympics, said in 1955: “We can only rely on the support of those who believe in the principles of fair play and sportsmanship embodied in the amateur code in our efforts to prevent the games from being used by individuals, organizations or nations for ulterior motives.”
The amateur / pro distinction is a bit difficult now though, no? I reckon it’s more they screwed-up when they pursued sports with a healthy audience and/or image, thinking that would just add it’s audience to the faithful. Which, it kinda does, but then in the long-term it’s just eroding the Olympic brand. Pretty much what the WSL is doing, but with multiple Dave Prodans and 40 Miley-Dyers.
fair play and sports will always lose when commingled with political ideologies and corporate greed
Imagine you’re the goat of (say) Archery. You’re probably still working part time in some shit job to keep the dream alive.
Indeed. That’s where it’s great seeing those guys get national sports funding and experiencing a little de facto professional time. Seeing Owen and Steph use that money to go to the Ranch for ‘Olympic readiness training’ was disgraceful.
BREAKING NEWS, WSL Brazil exiles former World Champion to Euro powerhouse and celebrates on the Social Media, patriotism abounds!
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
As an advanced scaffolder I’d suggest losing a floor of that structure. Unless they actually want it to fold onto the reef.
Bloody big sail on top. Whoosh.
This dragging of the Olympics is everything that wrong with media and surf culture these days. To think you’re dragging your own sport through this muck is sad, Derek Reilly and “Chas”(terrible name, maybe rebrand). We all clamored for this as kids, it’s here, yet you continue to rip it down. Pick a side, you’re either a surfer or a writer, there’s no need to combine the two as no one cares that much.
“Chas” WAS the rebranding.
It used to be Latrine and before that it was ……
OK downvote Barney.
Chuck?
Shithouse. It was. Mel Brooks reference.
Moving the event from Teahupoo sounds like the workings of Pip
Build no tower of any kind and let the judges watch Surfline replays.
What an absolute eyesore. I guess 5 poles spread out with cameras attached is about 4.9 Million less of free Olympic money. Government thinking the long game with a free structure for future events.
Well all I can say is thank fuck it’s not me being blamed this time for whatever it is.
Dirty floors. Ripping the lettuce the wrong way. Letting the kids play too much on the computer games. etc.
Edit: thanks for the downvote Barnycle. Are you my wife?
Ripped the lettuce every which way but loose.
No complaints,as I consequently tossed the salad with aplomb.
Are you in jail?
Lettuce pray!
There’s a right way to rip lettuce, and a wrong way. You’re obviously doing it the wrong way.
I’m no environmentalepidemiologistengineer, but can someone explain the difference between the mass amounts of emissions from the flotilla in the channel every time the wave breaks and a footings in the reef?
Actually, don’t answer that. I’m ignorant, haven’t read up on this at all, and in all honestly, don’t care. And it’s ok, I’ll tell myself to fuck off.
natasha on the line
I thought the first option, with bogs, was a decent environmental initiative, given Filipe alone must be chalking-up multiple poo dashes on the ski. Yeah, fuck off though.
I don’t care about “judging towers”, or that Fernando douche. Just want to see bodies of the other Countries sheep getting shattered on the reef! Can’t wait to see China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and so on during their heat, “IF” the douch runs it in proper Teahupoop!
Only 24 in the Men’s and by the time the qualifying events filter out the flotsam, I can guarantee there’ll be no Surfers from any of those Countries . You’ll just have to settle for pullback Pip .
Dream shattering. On the other hand, if the gold is won by someone standing tall in a massive Chopes pit, non-endemic sponsorship glory is guaranteed to follow – could even be one of the iconic images of this Olympiad.
But that’s not what we want, because then the VALs down in VAL-ville would show up at our beach, and they’d feast! and they’d feast! and they’d FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
And so the more we all think of this Chopes Olympic swing, the more we all think ‘we must stop this whole thing!’
Why for fifty-three months we’ve put up with it now! We must stop the Olympics from coming! But HOW?
All we need is a diversion, and so we’ve looked around. But since Chopes is iconic there were none to be found. So the locals simply said, ‘if we can’t find a diversion we’ll make one instead!’
So they loaded some diplomats, and some poor land-lubber sad sacks, on a ramshackle barge and hitched up old max, the barge captain,
Then they said ‘Giddy-up’ and the barge started down, toward the reef at the end of the road near the town, the reef where VALs would surely all drown,
All the water was dark, quiet fish swam below —
When BAM, that old barge delivered a blow! The reef was whacked, it was crunched, it was quarried. And we all sat back feeling so very merry.
We looked at each other with our eyes all a twinkle, and we laughed like a jolly old sitzpinkler.
But that’s not the end, this story keeps going. The damn barge is still floating it’s even still rowing. The VALs haven’t been defeated, they haven’t been cowered, they’ll never give up, soft tops give them power.
So Merry Christmas you freaks, go take a cold shower, then fill your glasses all up, let’s toast this fuckin’ tower.
You forget that they already filled the quotas from the legitimate surfing countries.
Also the “universality” place.
With luck it m8ght be someone who can surf, like luca mesinas, but theres a good chance some schmuck from israel or costa rica or Samoa is gonna have to throw themselves over the edge.
That universality is a weird one. Got to be in the ISA top 50 is about the only requirement.
I’ll add your Israel and Samoa to my list above of guaranteed not to be at the Olympics.
Aus x2
NZ x1
US x2
Bra x2
SAf x2
Canada* x1 (but he’s really a yank)
France x1
Italy x1
Japan x2
Mexico x1
Peru x1 (mesinas got in through convoluted route, but is actually in)
plus probably one of these nations will win the world surfing games and get the “third spot”
=17
That leaves 3 more surfers to qualify.
Now maybe that leaves room for Ramzi Boukiam or Rio Waida to get in, maybe it will be Fred Morais. Maybe all three. Yes there’s a chance for Carlos Munoz or Ricardo Christie. But with the exception of Fred, they are all borderline CT level, and he’s pretty old. If the surf at the world surfing games is shite it really could be anyone.
Ricardo started the OZ qualifying events and pretty much got smoked. I know you know, but it’s not a given that the Countries listed above get spots. A lot of people think that every country gets to send a Surfer!
Yeah could be a couple of unknown battlers who fill the last few spots which I’m fine with as they’ve done the work. But the top 16 is pretty stacked.
All in all it’s a pretty fair and balanced system.
Plenty of ledges in Costa Rica, son.
Can we actually have some fucking information on what is proposed. My only guess would be 12 x 300mm holes for footings. Literally fuck all. There is argument from Koby saying, “this will destroy the reef” and others stating that it won’t hurt the reef. The truth is somewhere in between.
Just some fucking tangible clarity please ffs.
Xox
clarity would lead to accountability (on all sides) and damn sure can’t have any of that.
microfiche…
Scroll baby, scroll.
If Koby is saying that, I’m inclined to believe that the reef will actually flourish.
It will become resilient and repair the ozone layer!
Xox
Just build it then pull it down afterwards. Its not like they are building the taj mahal.
Fuck, they pull down all the grandstands at Bells every year and you wouldn’t know it had ever been there.
That’s a pretty dumb fucking comparison considering one is built on sand and the other is literally in the water.
There’s not much difference mate. They both drill holes into the rock for footings and then everything hangs off that. What’s your problem? That the thing will fall over?
No problem but saying a tower built IN water is comparable to grandstands built on a bluff is way off. I get that they both anchor to a hard substrate but building something in water is far more difficult and has way different repercussions.
Isn’t the issue what it’s made out of? I mean there was already a judging tower there made out of wood, right?
Smells like a lot of BS finger pointing with no one willing to take the blame. F these assholes and their silence! Breaking every surf fans hearts as we all want nothing more than to see gold earned at pumping Teahupoo without ruining the reef forever