Surfing-There are tough jobs in Tahiti - surf forecasting is one

TEAHUPO'O, Tahiti : Kevin Wallis might have just about the toughest job at the Olympic surfing venue of Teahupo'o in Tahiti this week.

As director of forecasting at Surfline.com, which partners with the Olympic surfing organisers, the American has to tell them what conditions will be like, days in advance and down to the last minute, to advise of the best times to run competition.

Doing that on a remote island in the South Pacific is mostly science, but there's some art too.

Wednesday brought home the challenges of making a call.

With time running out to finish competition, organisers decided to send the women's round three out into a maelstrom of 15-foot stormy surf at one of the world's most dangerous waves.

They quickly changed their minds and cancelled competition for the day, leaving a nail-biting wait to wrap up the event and decide the medals.

"There's a 10-day window (for competition) and we've got four days to run all the way through the event," Wallis told Reuters.

"In a perfect world, you get four really great days of surf like we had on Monday morning, but that doesn't always happen.

"We've been super lucky so far. We've had two and a half days of anywhere from good to unbelievably all-time good in the case of Monday morning.

"So I would just look whether we get anything more like that the rest of the waiting period - probably not - but we've got a day and a half to finish. We've got to try and find the best day and a half left in the waiting period."

WESTERLY SWELL

Monday's waves were somewhat atypical, with a westerly swell that created thick slabs of water when they hit Teahupo'o's unique reef, providing spectacular viewing and challenging conditions even for the world's best surfers.

"In this case, we had a low