During the last day of the surfing competition at the Olympic Games, held in Tahiti, French Polynesia, an unexpected surprise caught everyone’s attention. A whale appeared jumping in the crystal-clear waters, filmed by the official cameras of the event, whose main venue is in Paris.
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The whale kept a safe distance from the competitors. Tatiana Weston-Webb from Brazil and Brisa Hennessy from Costa Ricawho were competing in their semi-final. Their presence provided spectators and photographers with an unforgettable moment at these Olympic Games.
Whale in Olympics
Photo:
This is not an isolated case of wildlife encounters during surfing competitions around the world, where birds, seals and even sharks have made unexpected appearances.
In Tahiti, which hosts this part of the Olympic event some 16,000 kilometres from Paris, whales are frequent visitors during their mating, birth and migration seasons.
Tahiti is also home to several protected marine areas. Last April, indigenous leaders in the South Pacific, including members of Tahiti, signed a treaty recognizing whales as “legal persons.” However, this declaration has not yet been incorporated into the laws of the signatory countries.
The image of the whale captured during the Games spread quickly on social media, similar to what happened a few days earlier with a photograph of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina.
Medina scored 9.90 after taking a near-perfect barrel wave and was immortalized in one of the most iconic photos of Paris 2024, captured by Jerome Brouillet of the AFP Agency.
In the competition where the whale appeared, Weston-Webb beat Hennessy by a score of 13.66 to 6.17 in their semi-final, advancing to the final where she lost to American Caroline Marks. Hennessy missed out on the podium after losing in the bronze medal match against Frenchwoman Johanne Defay by 12.66 to 4.93.
In the men’s category, Peruvian Alonso Correa came close to winning a medal, but lost 15.54 to 12.43 to Brazilian Medina in the fight for bronze.
THE NATION / GDA
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*This content was rewritten with the assistance of artificial intelligence based on information from La Nación (GDA) and was reviewed by a journalist and an editor.
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