Gravity-Defying Photo of Olympic Surfer With Near-Perfect Score Goes Viral
It has to be seen to be believed.
Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina made Olympics history on the third day of the surfing competition in Tahiti with a near-perfect 9.90 score; the highest ever recorded. But it was the gravity-defying photo of his victory that left mouths agape around the world.
Medina caught the wave while facing off against Japanese surfer Kanoa Igarashi, who previously edged him out for silver in the Tokyo Olympics. (He eventually came in fourth place, after losing to Australia's Owen Wright in the bronze medal match.) After clinching what he believed to have been a perfect score, Medina raised one finger triumphantly in the air while his surfboard unknowingly spun parallel behind him, in the moment that has since gone viral.
Aura. Gabriel Medina leaves us with one of the greatest Olympic shots! #TeamOakley #Paris2024 (in Tahiti) pic.twitter.com/Mh6rgKBWRX
— Oakley (@oakley) July 30, 2024
"I felt like it was a 10," Medina, a three-time World Surf League world champion, later said after his round. "I’ve done a few 10s before and I was like, ‘For sure, that’s a 10.’ The wave was so perfect."
In a video of Medina's performance, you can see the exact moment the photo was taken.
O mega tubo que o Gabriel Medina pegou na eliminatória do surf nos #JogosOlímpicos de #Paris2024 ???? #Surfing pic.twitter.com/hJik0UZf1M
— Jeff Nascimento (@jnascim) July 29, 2024
The shot was captured by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who was on a nearby boat with a half-dozen other journalists. But it wasn't just luck. Brouillet, an experienced surf photographer, could see that the conditions were perfect and knew that Medina often performed a similar celebration at the end of a wave.
"So he [Medina] is at the back of the wave and I can’t see him and then he pops up and I took four pictures and one of them was this one," Brouillet later told The Guardian. "It was not hard to take the picture. It was more about anticipating the moment and where Gabriel will kick off the wave."
Brouillet admitted that he was initially "a little bit shocked" to the reaction, as his photos were being automatically sent to his editors from his camera in real-time.
"I was just checking my phone on the six-minute break after the shoot and I had lots of notifications on social media and I thought something is happening with this shot and it was shared on ESPN and I thought: 'cool,'" he continued. "It’s very cool, it’s a nice shot and lots of people love it. It’s not really a surf photograph so it captures the attention of more people."