Kauli Vaast was registered for the US Open, stage 4 of the challengers, but after winning gold in Olympic surfing he changed his plans.

In the Olympic capital there are dozens of activations by official sponsoring brands and the organisation itself, national and international federations.

Thus, the young man from Vairao, next to Teahupoo, in Tahiti, is being treated like a rock star, at a reception, with thousands of people cheering him on, he surfed on top of the crowd and today he surfed none other than the Seine, doing Wakesurfing.

Vaast has not had a good result in the challengers, he was placed 49th in the Gold Coast, 33rd in Narrabeen and 17th in Ballito, he is 58th in the ranking and needed good results to enter the CT, but commercial and federation commitments spoke louder for the Frenchman.

For Italo Ferreira, his gold medal was key to increasing his sponsorship contracts, and the same happened to Kanoa Igarashi, who won the silver medal. Everything indicates that Kauli is following the same path.

Asked by DUKE how he thought his life would change from now on, he said: “It will change even more (than Italo Ferreira’s) because being at home, with perfect waves all the time, we had all kinds of conditions and I think it will change my life even more and also the vision of surfing in the Olympic Games will change and we are happy about that, I am happy.”

Below are some pictures of what Kauli's life in Paris has been like:

 

See this post on Instagram

A post shared by Equipe France (@equipefra)

See this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kauli VAAST (@kaulivaast)