French Polynesia’s homeboy Kauli Vaast has won the Olympic gold medal in the men’s shortboard finals of the Paris 2024 surfing event and in the process made history in Teahupo’o.

Radio 1 reports Vaast 22, an indigenous Tahitian, beat Australia’s Jack Robinson to become the first French Olympic surf champion.

Vaast, who grew up in Mahina (near Teahupo’o) and started surfing there when he was four years old, was immediately dubbed “King of Teahupo’o”.

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He becomes the first ever French Polynesian sportsman to win an Olympic gold medal for France — and adding to the Paris Olympics hosts tally to make it 13 gold medals.

“When I was a kid, I knew I want to do a lot of stuff on this wave,” Vaast told Olympics.com before the competition started.

“It was a dream for me. I always dreamed about doing a contest here, winning a contest there. It’s still in my mind, a dream. And I’m going to work for it,” he was quoted as saying.

As fans and supporters were starting to celebrate in Tahiti, Vaast’s mother, Natou, told local media she usually did not watch her son compete because of the associated stress.

“But when he’s competing in Tahiti, I just go gardening in the backyard and then I know when I hear the neighbours’ cheers”.

Earlier today (Monday Tahiti time), in the women’s category, France’s Johanne Defay secured a bronze medal and also entered history in winning the first medal ever at an Olympic surfing event.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French desk

French Polynesia’s top leaders have voiced united angry protests against a New York Times story published this week headlined “Olympic Surfing Comes to a ‘Poisoned’ Paradise”.

The story, published in Tuesday, was referring to the fallout in 1974 from one of the French nuclear tests — 193 were carried out between 1966 and 1996 on the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa — that would have contaminated the main island of Tahiti where the surfing events of the Olympics are currently being held in Teahupo’o.

Reacting to the article, Tony Géros, President of Polynesia’s Territorial Assembly, told public broadcaster Polynésie La Première TV that “just because The New York Times brings up age-old subjects doesn’t mean that today we’re going to question the entire future of the country regarding this matter.

• READ MORE:  French nuclear tests in the Pacific: the hidden fallout that hit Tahiti
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“It just doesn’t hold water.

“You know, they have the right to think what they want. They can come and lecture us.

“I think the United States also conducted their own nuclear tests,” said French Polynesia President Moetai Brotherson.

“So there you go, it doesn’t bother me that much.

“What would bother me was if this story became a big deal.”

Immediately after the Second World War, the US established its nuclear test Pacific Proving Grounds in the UN mandated trust territory of Micronesia.

Several sites in the Marshall Islands and a few other sites in the Pacific Ocean were where the US conducted 105 atmospheric and underwater — not underground — nuclear tests between 1946 and 1962.

The US tested a nuclear weapon codenamed Able on Bikini Atoll on 1 July 1946. It was followed by Baker three weeks later on July 25.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ with additional reporting by Asia Pacific Report.