Teahupo’o, Tahiti, is the next stop on the Championship Tour and the hometown of one of the WSL’s most exciting surfers, Kauli Vaast.
The 24-year-old will look to build momentum when the CT returns from its mid-season break on August 8. After winning Olympic gold at Teahupo’o in 2024, Vaast currently sits 14th in the rankings and will sense an opportunity to climb higher with back-to-back barrel-wave events, starting in Tahiti before the Tour heads to Fiji for the eighth stop of the season.
The best year-end finish ever by a surfer representing French Polynesia is Michel Bourez’s fifth place in 2014. Although Bourez won the prestigious Pipe Masters, he never managed to win at Teahupo’o. Vaast now has the chance to become the first male surfer from French Polynesia to win the Tahiti Pro — and the first reigning Challenger Series champion ever to do so.
Vaast will open his campaign against Crosby Colapinto in the Round of 32 in French Polynesia. Despite a mediocre beginning to his rookie year, competing at his home break, Kauli is widely considered one of the favourites to claim his first Championship Tour victory.
The French representative is yet to find consistency this season, splitting his results evenly between quarterfinal finishes and opening-round exits. As a result, Kauli’s position in the rankings could look very different heading into the second half of the season. The goofy-footer suffered a string of narrow early exits, including a heartbreaking 0.07-point loss to Leonardo Fioravanti at Bells Beach. He also suffered another Round of 32 defeat, this time to Jack Robinson at Margaret River, by less than half a point. Raglan in New Zealand provided the setting for another of those moments when it seemed Kauli was on the verge of a breakout performance. Despite posting an excellent 9-point ride, Vaast was unable to find the backup score he needed, allowing Robinson to eliminate him once again.
If Kauli Vaast can find balance in the second half of the season, he can become a contender in the world title race, especially with the Championship Tour concluding at Pipeline, where 15,000 (instead of the usual 10,000) points are on the line.
Going into Tahiti, former event winners Miguel Pupo, Italo Ferreira and Gabriel Medina all sit inside the top five in the rankings, while Jack Robinson and Kelly Slater, both past winners at the End of the Road, are also confirmed in the draw. If Kauli wants to be successful this time around, it’s almost certain he will have to deal with one or more names on that list.
Vaast’s four previous appearances at Tahiti were all as a wildcard, with his best result coming in 2022, when he finished runner-up after defeating five-time event winner Kelly Slater in the semifinals. This year, Kauli will compete at Teahupo’o for the first time as a full-time Championship Tour surfer, bringing what is arguably the most accomplished résumé ever by a rookie at the event.
In conversations with Tracks during the Australian leg of the Championship Tour and at the Newcastle Challenger Series finale, Kauli Vaast has consistently displayed a positive mindset while bringing a relaxed, upbeat energy to an otherwise high-pressure environment. Time will tell whether the local hero can handle the weight of expectations at home while fending off a field of world-class competitors eager to take the Teahupo’o crown from him. It’s crunch time for Kauli if he wants to emerge as a legitimate contender, but it’s also a huge opportunity for the Teahupo’o specialist who lends an air of showmanship to his act when he rides switch-foot in the heaving pits. Right now, it’s about switching the script on an up-and-down year and finding his groove.
