Why is the Olympic Games 2024 surfing held in Tahiti?
Meanwhile, 10,000 miles away...
Cosy, corner cafes, patisseries on cobbled streets, shopping boutiques, sunsets on the Seine and chic restaurants lining the tall, long roads through town.
Paris was not designed for major international surfing events.
The extreme water sport returns to the line-up for 2024 after a successful debut in Japan in 2021, but there's a twist.
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The event will be staged 9,800 miles away from France in Tahiti, in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, halfway between Australia and Peru.
All this leads to one, enormous, obvious question: why?
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Why is the Olympic Games 2024 surfing held in Tahiti?
Hopefully the reason why the surfing contest cannot be staged in Paris is immediately obvious to all: the French capital is located over 100 miles from the nearest beach.
Of course, events can be staged across the nation, not solely in the host city, but organisers opted for Teahupo'o among a line-up of five sites bidding to host the event – the other four based on French mainland.
Tahiti is one of many islands that have been consolidated to form French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France itself. It is a semi-autonomous territory under French rule.
Olympic officials said: "The decision to stage the surfing competitions at Teahupo’o aligns with Paris 2024’s ambition to spread the Games across France.
"It offers an opportunity to engage French overseas territories and their communities in the Olympic Games—for the first time in history—while showcasing France’s rich and diverse heritage."
It will be the furthest an Olympic event has ever been staged away from the host city when the surfing contest runs from Saturday 27th July until Wednesday 31st July.
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