Winning an Olympic medal at Teahupo’o – one of the most challenging and treacherous waves on the planet – was never going to be easy. For Jack Robinson, the task got even harder just a few days before the competition started.
Robinson headed into the Paris 2024 Olympic Games under tremendous pressure. A top-ranked surfer from Australia and winner of the Tahiti Pro stop on the WSL Championship Tour the year before, Robinson was hungry to prove himself on his Olympic debut.
But three days before the first round, he was thrown off his surfboard during a training session and sustained an injury to his right foot. The fin of Robinson’s surfboard had sliced his ankle and the athlete needed to be taken out of the water on a jet ski.
As the clock counted down to the first heats, Robinson got five stiches on his ankle, strapped back into his leash and headed out to tackle “The End of the Road” wave once more.
He made it through the first round and went on to eliminate three-time world champions John John Florence and Gabriel Medina in the next heats to set up a finals clash with local surfer Kauli Vaast.
The silver medal he took from that final was Australia’s best ever result at an Olympic surfing competition. Fellow Australian Owen Wright took bronze at Tokyo 2020.
“I almost didn’t get to surf this whole event. I got to surf and I was so close…I’m so fulfilled,” Robinson said after his medal-winning performance, according to the Australian Olympic Committee. “My foot didn’t affect me, but it was so close to affecting me. I’ll always just look back on that moment and never take it for granted.
“I visualised the moment so much that now it feels like I’m right where I’m meant to be. I’m blessed. You dream of it as a kid.”