{"id":347438,"date":"2023-11-18T02:24:07","date_gmt":"2023-11-18T03:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=347438"},"modified":"2023-11-18T07:01:20","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T07:01:20","slug":"twist-in-5-million-olympic-surfing-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=347438","title":{"rendered":"Twist in $5 million Olympic surfing controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organisers of next year's Olympic Games<\/a> are scaling back the metal tower they plan to build for judges and television cameras at the picture-perfect surfing venue in Tahiti<\/a>. They're bowing to concerns on the French Polynesian island about damage to sea life and its majestic Teahupo\u2019o wave.<\/p>\n

The tower will still be erected out at sea with aluminum but will be smaller, lighter, hold fewer people and require shallower drilling than originally planned, Paris 2024 organisers announced.<\/p>\n

Critics on the island have voiced fears for coral reefs, fish and other aquatic life when the tower's foundations are drilled into the seabed and mounted on concrete. Islanders pushed for the Olympics to use a modest wooden tower on existing foundations that's long been the set-up for surfing competitions at Teahupo\u2019o. They have collected more than 160,000 signatures with an online petition.<\/p>\n

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Organisers had been planning on installing a $5 million aluminium structure at the famous surfing spot.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Professional Tahitian surfer Matahi Drollet has been among opponents of the metal tower. Videos critical of its plans that he posted on Instagram have tens of thousands of likes. People on the island, some carrying surf boards, also marched in protest in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ocean and the lagoon is the most precious place we have here. This is where we get our food from, where we play, where … we spend most of our time and where we have the most perfect wave in the world,\u201d Drollet said in an October post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a heritage of our ancestors that we need to preserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

In announcing revised plans for what they called \u201ca leaner, smaller tower", Olympic organisers said the old wooden tower previously used to judge surfing competitions on the Teahupo\u2019o wave couldn't be certified for safety reasons for Paris 2024.<\/p>\n

Time and erosion by the ocean have weakened and corroded the tower's foundations and it \u201cmust be replaced if Teahupo\u2019o is to continue to organise surfing events, whether for the Olympic Games or any other competition," the organisers' statement said.<\/p>\n

The surface area of the new aluminum tower will now be reduced by a quarter, to make it the same size as the wooden one \u2014 150 square metres (1,615 square feet) \u2014 that used to be erected and then dismantled for competitions, organisers said.<\/p>\n

It will hold 25 to 30 people during the Olympics, down from 40 initially planned.<\/p>\n

They will be provided with dry toilets instead of flush ones that originally were to have been linked to the island's sewage system via a wastewater pipe that's now being abandoned.<\/p>\n

The tower's weight will also be reduced from 14 to nine tons \u2014 also the same as the wooden one.<\/p>\n

The foundations won't have to be drilled so deeply as a consequence, organizers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new tower, less imposing and reduced in size and weight, installed on new permanent foundations, is the solution that will ensure the longevity of the tower and guarantee that future sporting events can be held at Teahupo\u2019o,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Drollet appeared to respond to the statement on Instagram on Saturday, posting a photo of the wooden tower with the caption: "The one and only!".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organisers of next year's Olympic Games are scaling back the metal tower they plan to build for judges and television cameras at the picture-perfect surfing […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":343185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347438"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347440,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347438\/revisions\/347440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/343185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}