Agence France-Presse photographer Jerome Brouillet anticipated something spectacular when he saw Brazilian Olympic surfer Gabriel Medina paddle into one of the day’s largest waves at one of the world’s most challenging surf breaks. What he did not expect was that his photograph of Medina exiting the wave—a ride that earned a record Olympic score at Tahiti—would become an international sensation, potentially becoming a defining image of both the sport and the Games.
Brouillet was strategically positioned on a boat in the channel, a deeper, calmer area beside the wave but with limited visibility of the initial action. However, this was precisely where he wanted to be.
Brouillet waited for Medina to “kick out,” or exit the wave face after his run. “Every photographer is waiting for that. You know Gabriel Medina, especially at Teahupo’o, will kick off and do something,” Brouillet said. “You know something is going to happen. The only tricky moment is where he is going to kick out? Because I’m blind!”
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Medina’s acrobatic exit was exactly what Brouillet hoped to capture. “I think that when he was in the tube he knew that he was in one of the biggest waves of the day. He is jumping out of the water like ‘man, I think this is a 10’,” Brouillet remarked.
Although Brouillet had an inkling he had captured something extraordinary, he wasn’t entirely certain. “When I’m shooting at Teahupo’o I don’t shoot in such a high burst mode because, at the end of the day, if you push too hard on the button you come back with 5,000 shots in a day, and I don’t like that!” he said. “I got four shots of him out of the water and one of the four shots was this photo.”
The image has been featured in numerous publications worldwide and has garnered millions of likes and shares online. Australian media conglomerate News.com.au declared it “may well be the greatest sports photo of all time” on its Facebook page, while TIME magazine called it “the defining image of triumph of the 2024 Summer Games.”
Medina himself shared the photo on his Instagram, quickly amassing over 2.4 million likes. Despite the praise, Brouillet remains focused on his work, noting, “I’m sleeping at a friend’s house near Teahupo’o and we’ll have a quiet one because if tomorrow the event is on, I have to wake up at five in the morning!”
(Includes inputs from online sources)
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