OF ALL the decisions Paris Olympics organisers made about where to hold each sport, sending surfing competitions to the other side of the world — in the Pacific waters of Tahiti — provoked the strongest reactions. Tahitians and others railed against the building of a new viewing tower on Teahupo’o reef because of fears it would hurt marine life.

But organisers say it wasn’t just the world-class waves that lured them to the French territory 16,000 kilometres (9,942 miles) away. Paris Olympic officials had set an ambitious target of halving their overall carbon footprint compared with the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games.

Tahiti’s surfing reef is too far offshore for fans to see the action clearly from the beach, so organisers say they calculated that most would watch on television instead of taking flights, a major source of carbon emissions.