Controversy over the construction of a reef-anchored judging stand is undermining excitement over the 2024 Summer Olympics’ surfing competition – only the second appearance of the sport in the quadrennial global gala’s history. Now a work-around solution is being forwarded by international officials, who propose using drones among other tech alternatives to provide scorers views needed for evaluating rides.
As DroneDJ has noted in the past, drones have revolutionized the way surfing is photographed and videoed by allowing pilots to take image-capturing sensors far closer and deeper into waves than ever before. The exceptions to that are camera-toting swimmers who park themselves in front of on-coming barrels, usually from thrilling but perspective-limited positions that need to be abruptly and immediately cleared when riders draw near to boot.
Drones, by contrast can zoom in very close from non-obtrusive distances, filming from a variety of angles – including on swells so huge they prevent any but the most skilled and suicidal of surfers (and virtually no photographers) from heading out. Now UAVs are being proposed as a solution to an environmental dispute surrounding the surfing portion of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Though most events will be held in the host city of Paris, the surfing competition will be staged in Tahiti (whose possession by France generates controversies of its own, but those are another story). The spot: the legendary, massive liquid slab at Teahupo’o, where international competitions are usually judged using a bamboo stand placed upon the coral lurking beneath just inches of water.
Planners of the 2024 Olympics are building a structure in aluminum this time, involving construction and transport work that local surfers, residents, politicians, and environmentalists say are massacring the fragile reef.
The solution now proposed by the sport’s governing International Surfing Association (ISA) is to spare the reef by positioning judges on the beach, and feeding them images from a variety of high-powered cameras – including those aboard drones.
The ISA’s set of options was sent to local officials and Olympic authorities this month. They suggest either using a minimal version of the traditional non-destructive bamboo stand to install high-resolutions cameras on it at the same height judges normally sit. Those and mobile boat and drone footage for additional perspectives would then be used to score rides.
The ISA’s other alternative is to lose the platform entirely, and complement water- and airborne-video with super high-zoom cameras shooting from elevated nests on land. Since drones and boat-loaded tech will already be deployed for use by the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) for TV viewers, the ISA says promoting those vehicles to a more central role as scoring assets offers a win-win prospect.
“Judges (would) have continuous or instant access to all possible OBS camera angles, as per the current plan including water/boat cameras and drones,” the ISA plan says. “Depending on whether a platform on the reef can be used, the four OBS cameras and two boat cameras would ensure there is always a back-up image: Main Tower view plus the Lagoon view, with jetski cam and drones as additional tools… We believe a fair and accurate competition can be run, with different technological and operational solutions described in the scenarios below.”
Initial reaction from Paris Olympic officials has been a big non. Organizers claim that when waves get big, the only way for judges to see over them is to be closest the one surfers are riding. That may be true, but it glibly ignores the way drones have gotten around that problem to capture in-your-boardshorts footage on swells of all sizes – including some so enormous they make even Teahupo‘o look like ripples.
Image: Silas Baisch/Unsplash
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