TEAHUPO’O: France’s Kauli Vaast won men’s surfing Olympic gold Monday on his Tahitian home waves at Teahupo’o, while the United States’ Caroline Marks claimed gold in the women’s event in a thrilling final that went down to the wire. Vaast, who grew up nearby, beat Australian silver medallist Jack Robinson to claim France’s first Olympic surfing gold after taking the two best waves of a high-level match.

Three-time world champion Gabriel Medina of Brazil, who went into the Games a widely tipped favourite, took the men’s bronze, beating out Alonso Correa with a score of 15.54 to the Peruvian’s 12.43

An AFP photograph of Medina celebrating after kicking out of a wave last week following a ride that earned a record Olympic score became a global sensation, and a defining image of the sport and the Paris Games. Local prodigy Vaast took the lead against Robinson from the start, scoring a 9.50 on his first wave, and racking up a total of 17.67 against 7.83 for the Australian, who conceded in the final moments.

“The mana was with me today,” Vaast said after the win, referring to a supernatural force in Polynesian culture. “From the beginning, every day I felt it, it was there.” Winning on his home turf of Teahupo’o was “the cherry on the cake”, he added. “For all of France, for all of Polynesia it’s incredible.”

Speaking 15,000 kilometres from the epicentre of the Paris Games, Vaast said he was unsure whether he could make it to the French capital to celebrate, noting he had another competition starting soon, “but I haven’t decided yet — we’ll see”. In the women’s final, Marks pipped Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb by just 0.17 points to become the second American Olympic surfing champion after Carissa Moore in 2021.

France’s Johanne Defay took the women’s bronze, scoring 12.66 to Costa Rican Brisa Hennessy’s 4.93. In an evenly matched final that was only decided in the final few minutes, the 22-year-old world champion Marks scored 10.50 with her best two waves, just enough to edge the Brazilian, who managed 10.33. — AFP

Born in Florida, the young American moved as a teenager to San Clemente, California, a hotbed of American surfing, where the WSL finals have been held for the past two years. — AFP