By Lincoln Feast
TEAHUPO’O, Tahiti (Reuters) – The final day of Olympic surfing was set to get underway later on Monday at Tahiti’s Teahupo’o, with waves forecast to build as Brazil’s Gabriel Medina and American Caroline Marks look to claim surfing’s rarest prize.
After three days of great conditions last week, organisers were only able to run one more day of competition since due to small swells and bad winds, leaving a nail-biting wait for better waves to arrive for the last possible day of competition on Monday.
Forecasts are calling for the surf to build throughout the day to reach 6-8 feet – well overhead – with clean offshore trade winds, setting the stage for a potentially spectacular finale.
A final call will be made at 9.00 a.m. local time (1700 GMT) for a 10.30 a.m. start, with the men’s semi-finals to be followed by the women’s semi-finals, before the bronze medal match-ups and then finals.
Medina’s semi-final is against Jack Robinson, another tube-riding maestro from Australia who has a strong record against the Brazilian and is a former event winner here.
The winner will take on either France’s Tahitian local Kauli Vaast, who has caught some of the best waves of all-time at Teahupo’o, or Peruvian Alonso Correa.
On the women’s side, France’s Johanne Defay will face American world champion Caroline Marks in one semi-final, while Tatiana Weston-Webb of Brazil and Costa Rica’s Brisa Hennessy will meet in the other.
(Reporting by Lincoln Feast in Tahiti; editing by Bill Berkrot)
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