“We respect the decision which was taken almost unanimously locally to continue to launch this construction work,” he said during an end-of-year press conference at Cojo headquarters. A desire reaffirmed when, in a press release on Tuesday, the ISA said it had proposed to the Polynesian government, as well as to the organizers of the Olympic Games, to do without the tower on the Teahupo’o site and to judge the event via aerial images and taken from the shore and the sea. This option “has already been appraised and studied recently, and was not considered possible, feasible on several subjects: on the technical level to produce images but also in terms of security, it asks a lot of questions,” said Tony Estanguet. “Five months from the tests, eight months from the Games, we must be able to move forward,” underlined Etienne Thobois, general director of Paris-2024.
The ISA’s proposal was made when the Polynesian government announced that the event could be held at the Teahupo’o site on December 10. Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson presented a work schedule that should result in a functional tower on May 13, a few days before the World Surf League (WSL) world tour stop.
He claimed to have obtained the “unanimous support of all the mayors, the surfing federation (of Tahiti, Editor’s note) and even the associations, apart from one, and of a surfer, who thinks he represents the community of surfers”. “The project continues, it is the wish of the local actors united behind their president Moetai Brotherson,” said Mr. Estanguet.
The Polynesian president explained to an AFP journalist on Tuesday that we should “not wake up at the moment of the buzz”. “The ISA has been associated with these Olympic surfing events from the start. It’s a little late to wake up.” At the beginning of December, during technical tests, a barge intended for the installation of the resized aluminum tower had broken coral, pushing the Polynesian government to pause the work. The test had been “poorly prepared”, judged the Minister of Sports and the Olympics, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. The ISA welcomed the suspension of work.
