Of the 48 surfers who arrived on Tahitian shores carrying with them the hopes of their representative nations and dreams of Olympic Gold-only eight remain. Two will go home empty-handed, a Medal just out of their reach, while six of them will return home as national and international stars.
After an emotional rollercoaster first four rounds of competition, two Brazilians and two French remain, joined by a lone American, Peruvian, Costa Rican, and Australian.
In the subsequent four Semifinal heats, winners head to the Olympic Finals to battle for Gold, while those who fall short surf off for Bronze. Before we get to know our eight remaining surfers, here's the match-ups:
France's Kauli Vaast vs Peru's Alonso Correa Australia's Jack Robinson vs Brazil's Gabriel Medina USA's Caroline Marks vs France's Johanne Defay Costa Rica's Brisa Hennessy vs Brazil's Tatiana Weston-Webb
France's Kauli Vaast vs Peru's Alonso Correa
Local Kauli Vaast knows every inch of this reef better any pretty much anyone. - ISA
Local boy Kauli Vaast has been touted as Tahiti's next big thing since he was barely a teenager. Cutting his teeth as a tiny little grom on the black sand beachbreaks a short drive from Teahupo'o, Vaast's well-rounded skillset evolved incredibly rapidly, taken under the wing by the most successful and well-respected competitor to ever come from Tahiti, Michel "The Spartan" Bourez, as well as Teahupo'o specialists like Matahi and Manoa Drollet, Tereva and Vetea "Poto" David.
Spending a healthy amount of time in France and traveling on the Qualifying Series, Vaast is a worldly young international. He is as comfortable in a Dior fashion shoot as he is grinding out a QS heat in Hossegor or Tel Aviv.
Qualifying through the ISA Games in El Salvador last year, Vaast and fellow local Tahitian and close childhood friend Vahine Fierro were the first surfers to officially qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games. Both have found themselves in the international limelight in the lead-up to this summer, and Kauli has not left any opportunity on the table. The globetrotting 22-year-old is as likely to be on a big swell at Teahupo'o as he is to be galavanting around Paris Fashion Week.
Tahiti's pride and joy, Kauli Vaast is ready to bring Gold to the host nation. - ISA
Despite his young age, Vaast is one of the most experienced surfers in the event at Teahupo'o, consistently dropping scroll-arresting clips from the End of the Road, comfortable regardless of whether it is a tow swell or a paddle swell.
Famously, Vaast made the final of the SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro in 2023, taking out the winningest surfer at Teahupo'o ever, 11x World Champion Kelly Slater (casually getting tubed going switch-stance in their heat), and blitzing through the World Tour's best to finish runner-up.
A win at home for Vaast would be a tremendous victory for the local boy and would mean the world to the Teahupo'o village community, which has watched him grow up.
Grit, determination and hard-charging have given Alonso Correa the chance to bring home Gold. - ISA
Alonso Correa isn't the most famous surfer in the Olympic draw. But among surfing's core contingent, the Peruvian has earned an international reputation as an absolute charger and a talented tube rider in waves of consequence. Correa is one of the most respected surfers from Latin America, a two-time Gold Medalist at the Pan American Games.
Peruvian surf culture isn't new. In fact, there are historical arguments that surfing dates back as far as it does in places like Hawaii, Tahiti and the rest of the Polynesian Triangle. Pottery from northern Peru dating back to 1000BC depicts people riding waves.
Modern surfing in Peru began around the same time as in Australia and the USA. In fact, surfing's second World Championships were won in 1964 by Peruvian Felipe Pomar. Correa won his first Gold Medal at the Pan AM Games at just 17 and again two years later at 19.
No stranger to charging the craziest waves, Alonso will put it all on the line for glory. - ISA
Correa, along with Olympic teammates Sol Aguirre and Lucca Mesinas, qualified for the Olympics through the ISA World Games in 2023, where Peru won Gold. The same year, Correa was nominated for a 2023 Stab Edit of the Year, called "The Most Barreled Man of 2023, surely."
Correa's performance so far at the 2024 Olympic Games has earned him a tremendous amount of new attention, the goofyfoot's profile long overdue for a spike.
Australia's Jack Robinson vs Brazil's Gabriel Medina
Australia's Jack Robinson laser focused with the medal chase at hand. - ISA
West Oz's Jack Robinson has been in the public eye for more than a decade and a half. Touted as a prodigious youth talent as a teenager, it's easy to forget that the new father is only 26 years old.
Born in Margaret River near his childhood hero Taj Burrow, Robinson was thrust into the limelight as one of Quiksilver's Young Guns, alongside Kanoa Igarashi and Leonardo Fioravanti, the groms were being sent on trips to world-class locations like G-Land or the Mentawaiis with surfers like Kelly Slater and Dane Reynolds.
Famous as a preteen for his bobbed, blonde mop of hair and incredibly advanced ability to read hollow, heavy surf at such a young age, over the last half-decade, Robinson has grown into one of the most respected talents and focused, heady competitors on the planet, especially in heavy surf like Pipeline, Sunset, and Teahupo'o, a wave his father began bringing him too more than a decade ago.
Jack Robinson, the phenomenal slab hunter, is never to be doubt when it gets serious. - ISA
Jack won the 2023 SHISEIDO Pro Tahiti, taking out a blitzing Gabriel Medina and securing his spot in the 2023 WSL Finals. With the 2024 Olympic Surfing competition happening at one of his favorite waves in the world when Robinson qualified for the Games, he was immediately one of the guys to beat.
Jack will come up against one of his fiercest rivals, who he took out at Teahupo'o last year in the 2023 SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro.
Gabriel Medina, the man that took the Olympics by storm, now looks to close out a dream run with a Gold medal. - ISA
Gabriel Medina already "won the Olympics," the Jerome Brouillet photo of him kicking out of the highest score of the event so far going beyond viral, touted as "the photo of the Games," and netting him 1.5+ million new followers on Instagram. But none of this will be a distraction to Medina, who has been a massive national star in Brazil, where fandom rules supreme, for a decade now.
While Medina was always going to be a technical aerial genius, his fearlessness and precision at some of the tour's heaviest waves like Teahupo'o or Pipeline is what has always set him apart.
Medina won the Tahiti Pro for the first time in 2014, at 21, against Kelly Slater, the winningest surfer ever at Teahupo'o. The win established Medina as one of his generation's most gifted all-conditions surfers and smoothly paved the way to his first World Title that year.
Brazil's Gabriel Medina is the most winning surfer out at Teahupo'o. - ISA
The 3x WSL World Champion has been a perennially consistent standout at Teahupo'o, making the final in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2023 and winning the event again in 2018.
Medina and Robinson have had some epic battles over the years, surfing against each other in six major events, with both winning three times against the other. While Robinson has beaten Medina in Tahiti (2023), G-Land (2023), and Pipeline (2023), Medina has taken out Jack in Portugal (2024), El Salvador (2022), and Uluwatu (2018).
Their semifinal match-up will be a chance for Medina to get back at Robinson for his win at the 2023 Tahiti Pro against him in the final.
"We've always had great battles, me and Jack," Medina said after finding out he'd be surfing against Jack. "It's gonna be a good one. Hopefully, the waves will show up, you know, so we can both surf. But yeah, he's pretty hard to beat. So it's gonna be a good one."
USA's Caroline Marks vs France's Johanne Defay
The defending World Champ Caroline Marks, is looking to add gold to her trophy case. - ISA
After taking out defending Gold Medalist Carissa Moore in the Quarterfinals, Johanne Defay will have plenty of confidence and momentum carrying her into her semifinal matchup against Caroline Marks. However, Marks has an impeccable track record against Defay, beating her all five times they've matched up in heats prior, not to mention the defending World Champ won there, in Tahiti, on the way to her Title last year.
Anyone who has paid attention to Florida's tradition of producing world-class surfers wasn't surprised to see a young, goofyfoot prodigy rise from its shores. Qualifying for the Championship Tour as a teenager, 2018 Rookie of the Year and 2023 World Champion Marks was raised on the same stretch of sandbars as champions like Lisa Andersen, Kelly Slater, CJ and Damien Hobgood, Cory and Shea Lopez, Freida Zamba, etc.
Caroline's textbook techinique have her ready to put together strategically strong heats in the face of danger. - ISA
With her powerful, technically perfect approach and humbling backhand technique, Marks has made a conscious effort to spend quality time at Teahupo'o over the last few years, learning the reef's unique qualities and moods while gleaning knowledge from one of the most stylish veteran goofyfoots to compete there on the CT over the last twenty years, her longtime coach and confidante Luke Egan.
After winning the 2023 SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro last year, Marks solidified herself a contender in all conditions, and carried the momentum to her first World Title later that summer at Lower Trestles.
France's Johanne Defay is dangerous in any condition, whether its bombing or its rippable, Johanne is ready to rock. - ISA
France's Johanne Defay first learned to surf on Reunion Island, France's other idyllic, tropical surf destination, albeit in the Indian Ocean. Competing since before she was a teen, Defay cut her teeth surfing in European amateur events before turning her attention to qualifying for the Championship Tour.
Growing up surfing a left reef pass that is considered one of the best in the world when it was first discovered surely helped shape Defay's powerful, explosive surfing, as well as her backside tube riding approach, which is evident in the locations at which she's won major Championship Tour events: Uluwatu, Cloudbreak, and G-Land, all hollow left reef passes.
Defay has the benefit of being a fan favorite for the Olympic's host nation this year and is more than capable of taking the event out.
Brazil's Tatiana Weston-Webb vs Costa Rica's Brisa Hennessy
Few surfers have put in as much dedication and hard work, especially when it comes to pushing themselves in powerful waves as Tatiana Weston-Webb and Brisa Hennessy. Power vs power, their matchup for a spot in the Olympic Finals, will be one of the most exciting heats of the event.
Brisa's postive attituide and pura vida lifestyle have given her a connection with the most special waves around. - ISA
Hennessy carries the hopes of one of surfing's most beautiful international destinations, Costa Rica, and a community who will be rooting for her from all over the Pacific and Caribbean coastlines. One of the most universally adored personalities on tour, Hennessy is the product of two of the most idyllic environments in the surf world, the land of pura vida, Costa Rica, and Fiji- both international surf destinations famous for their communities' remarkable warmth and kindness, qualities Brisa possesses in spades.
Strong, stylish, and confident in powerful surf, In 2018, Hennessy became the first Costa Rican to qualify for the CT at 18 years old. Representing the land of pura vida at the 2024 Paris Games, this is the 2x ISA Gold Medalist's second Olympics flying the Costa Rican flag, finishing equal-5th and just shy of a Medal in 2020.
Weston-Webb has the entire nation of Brazil behind her, along with her teammate Gabriel Medina, the last two remaining of the six Brazilians qualified. After an equal 9th at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and coming runner-up for the World Title last year, Tati has a big result due her, and an Olympic Gold would be her biggest career accomplishment to date.
Tatiana Weston-Webb's confidence in waves of consequence can be traced as far back as day 1 for Brazil's top female contender. - ISA
Weston-Webb is one of the most experienced and seasoned female surfers at Teahupo'o. Born in Brazil but moving to Hawaii at just a couple of months old, Weston-Webb grew up in one of surfing's most underground fertile crescents, her surfing shaped by the same waves that molded some of the most well-rounded surfers on earth: Keala Kennelly, Dustin Barca, Andy, and Bruce Irons just to name a few.
Weston-Webb has earned a reputation as one of the most consistent, steely-nerved, influential surfers on tour. An adopted member of the Brazilian Storm and now married to longtime beau, Sao Paolo's Jesse Mendes, Weston-Webb made a point of putting in time at places like Pipeline and Teahupo'o years before the locations were officially added to the Women's CT.
Qualifying for the CT in 2015, Weston-Webb has won events at venues as diverse as J-Bay, Margaret River, Peniche, and the US Open of Surfing, finishing runner-up in a ridiculously right battle for the World Title against Carissa Moore at the 2022 Rip Curl WSL Finals.
Tatiana Weston-Webb has found the next gear at the End Of The Road. - ISA
As for the forecast, with two days left in the Olympic waiting period, we've been tapping some of our most reliable South Pacific gurus to get a sense of what we're in for for the final day.
According to local boots on the ground, officials have a tough, tough call to make, run the event in fun-sized surf tomorrow or wait for a potential day of fireworks on Monday afternoon to see who takes home Gold.
There's a new pulse coming this afternoon, nothing big, but fun, though the winds are not the best. Not strong, but not great. They could finish the comp, waves will be contestable but here's where it gets tricky.
Monday, the last day of the comp, there's a new swell coming, but it looks like it's coming midday, which is a tough bet. But if it were up to our sources, they should risk it because when that swell hits Tahiti, it's going to be perfect, with really good conditions and epic waves for the end of the event. The last swell came earlier, so hopefully, the swell will get there on time on Monday.
It's all about the timing.
Learn more about Teahupo'o here.
Head to the International Surfing Association (ISA) for more information on surfing in the Olympics.