The swift response from the Polynesian president and his Paris 2024 counterpart left Olympic surfers and the International Surfing Association in a difficult situation.

There doesn't seem to be a single voice within surfing that supports the construction of the tower, but rather they are all against it.

Now, are these holes in the reef, this potential damage that some studies and local surfers are talking about, enough for Olympic surfers to boycott the Games? Is it enough for the ISA to pull out and leave the event without technical personnel?

Without surfers there is no Olympic surfing and without the ISA neither.

Or, on the contrary, is the material wealth, media exposure, government grants and incentives, and multi-million dollar contracts that Olympic surfing brings to surfers and the ISA enough to turn a blind eye to potential irreversible environmental damage?

Now that the construction of the tower is imminent, all the actors involved are asking themselves the same question. They are weighing up the costs and benefits of this tower, morality, honour and the weight of their word… Several have already spoken out against it, how much weight do their words carry now? How much will they back up with actions the weight of these words?

One strategy that seems likely to be the most widely used is to wait and see how the work goes, but what will ultimately happen is that once it starts, if it goes badly, the damage will already be done.

Will any Olympic surfers retire before the competitions start? Will the ISA withdraw?