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When AFP photographer Jerome Brouillet set out to shoot the third day of the Olympic Games’ surfing competition in Tahiti on Monday, he couldn’t have predicted that he’d capture one of the most iconic moments of the Games so far.
In the fifth heat of the day, Brazilian three-time world champion Gabriel Medina rode through a huge wave, a ride that would nab him a nearly perfect score of 9.90 — an Olympic record. From a boat to the side of the action, Brouillet waited for Medina to surf out of the wave — where he captured the now-viral photo.
Medina, who’s just soared out from the barrel of a treacherous wave, raises an arm toward the sky, index finger pointed upward. His surfboard, tethered to his ankle, is also careening through the air — and, in this millisecond captured by Brouillet, is perfectly parallel with Medina.
“I like to say that taking pictures is a bit like surfing. It’s a mix of preparation, devotion, timing, some experience and a touch of luck,” Brouillet wrote in an Instagram post featuring the photo.
When Medina first entered the wave, one of the biggest of the day, Brouillet could tell that something special was going to happen, he told the AFP. But from his vantage point on a boat with other media covering the event, he said he wasn’t sure what he’d be able to capture. Then, the expert surfing photographer snapped four frames of Medina emerging from the wave, celebrating his run.
"Sometimes he makes an acrobatic gesture and this time he did that and so I pushed the button," he told the AFP.
In the meantime, the photo has gone majorly viral; Medina himself posted the photo to Instagram, where it’s received more than 5.7 million likes.
The fact that Brouillet was able to snap this photo probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise — the photographer, who’s worked for the AFP for several years, is a surfer himself and moved to Tahiti about a decade ago, according to Time.
“That day, Gabriel was in the water at the right place, at the right time, and so was I,” Brouillet wrote on Instagram.
The Paris Games’ surfing events have been taking place off the coast of Teahupo’o, a village on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. Its waters are notorious for the heavy, powerful waves that break over a large but shallow reef. Accordingly, it’s both unnerved and enticed top surfers for decades: “It's one of the most beautiful and dangerous waves in the world,” pro big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara told NPR.
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