Vaast clinches Olympic surfing gold on home wave

American Caroline Marks and Kauli Vaast of France have become the 2024 Olympic surfing champions.

Marks, 22, narrowly missed out on bronze at Tokyo 2020 but clinched the women’s title in French Polynesia.

The surfing competition was held 9,800 miles from Paris in Tahiti, where Vaast was born and bred.

Tahiti was chosen for the legendary Teahupo’o wave, which Vaast, also 22, first surfed when he was eight years old.

He made a fine start to the final with a near-perfect 9.5 ride, with his next best wave giving him a total of 17.67 and a clear victory over Australia’s Jack Robinson (7.83).

Vaast had beaten Peru’s Alonso Correa in the semi-finals while Robinson overcame Brazil’s Gabriel Medina.

A stunning image of Medina celebrating an Olympic record 9.9 wave earlier in the competition went viral last week and the Brazilian (15.54) beat Correa (12.43) to clinch the bronze medal.

Marks (10.50) secured a narrow victory over Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb (10.33) in the women’s final.

Johanne Defay, who hails from the mountainous region of Auvergne, earned another surfing medal for hosts France by beating Costa Rica’s Brisa Hennessy by 12.66 to 4.93 for bronze.