5 questions with Canadian surfer Sanoa Dempfle-Olin making her Olympic debut

Sanoa Dempfle-Olin will be the first Canadian to compete in surfing in an Olympic Games starting Saturday.

The sport made its Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2021, but Canada didn't enter an athlete.

Dempfle-Olin is Canada's lone surfer competing in Tahiti's Teahupo'o (pronounced CHOH-poo), which is known as the "Wall of Skulls."

Tahiti is a French Polynesian Island in the South Pacific some 15,000 kilometres from the host city of Paris.

The 18-year-old Dempfle-Olin from Tofino, B.C., provisionally qualified for the Paris Games by winning a silver medal at the 2023 Pan American Games, and officially stamped her ticket by finishing 13th in February's World Surf Games in Puerto, Rico.

Her older sister Mathea is also an accomplished surfer having won Pan Am Games bronze in Lima, Peru in 2019.

Sanoe Dempfle-Olin answered a few questions from The Canadian Press ahead of making national surfing history. The interview has been condensed and edited for space.

Do you think that you will still feel a part of the Olympic Games competing at a venue that's so far away from the host city?

"You definitely will. It has a different energy around it. It is far away. I'm sure it will have its differences. Hopefully I get to go to Paris after the surfing part of the event and get to see the Olympic city."

What makes Teahupo'o so formidable and why is it called the Wall of Skulls?

"Teahupo'o is a really popular wave in surfing. It can be a very dreamy, perfect wave and it can also hold a lot of swell and get really big and really thick. It breaks over a really shallow reef. It is a very scary wave. It takes a lot to surf it."

Are you not afraid of sharks and have you ever seen one?

"I'm not particularly afraid of sharks. I definitely sometimes have them in the back of my mind if you see something splashing around, but it all depends what kind of environment you're in. If you're in a nice lagoon and swimming with stingrays and smaller sharks and you're feeling calm, it's a very beautiful experience because they're super-special beautiful creatures. But then they are very powerful and they're hunters. If you saw one swimming in front of you, you'd definitely be nervous."

What does it mean to you to be the first Canadian to qualify in Olympic surfing?

"It definitely means a lot for me. I've felt so much support from the Canadian surfing community because of it. It just makes me feel there's a bigger future for Canadian surfing. I hope it gives more opportunity for Canadian surfers and for any of the kids growing up in Tofino or in any other part of Canada where there's an ocean and where there's waves to have surfing as a sport option growing up."

Who inspires you? Do you have a hero?

"My sister is definitely one of my heroes, for sure. She kind of almost paved the path for Canadian surfing and she kind of like led the way for me. And then also a lot of the local surfers like Pete Devries, Raph and Sepp Bruhwiler, and just all the people I grew up (with) surfing and watching, they're all my heroes."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 26, 2024.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press