The perfect wave

While most 2024 Olympians will be battling for glory in Paris, the world's best surfers will be going for gold 16,000km away on Tahiti, where the spinning blue barrels of Teahupo'o might be the real star of the show.

A potent mix of beauty and brutality, Teahupo’o has been the venue for many of surfing’s most exciting contests and some of the sport’s seminal moments since it was revealed to the wider world in the 1990s.