"It’s not really a surf photograph so it captures the attention of more people.”
Surfing’s initial Olympic offering, after being included in the 2021 nee 2020 Tokyo Games, was, and always would have been silly (save a wild typhoon). Japan, for all its magic, is not a known wave banger. And, so, surf fans and surfers alike were thrilled when Paris announced it would contest its 2024 Olympics 10,000 miles away from the City of Love all the way at Tahiti’s End of the Road.
As soon it was announced, surf fans were both thrilled but worried. Would Head Place turn on or would nature not cooperate thus creating another li’l flippy few days of mediocre surf absolutely non-understandable to the family watching in Dubuque.
A suspect forecast leading up to the waiting period had the aforementioned (surf fans, not Dubuque family) maybe sad.
But nature is an unpredictable beast and roared to life creating one of the best days of competitive surfing in memory/history.
Thus birthing “the image of the Games.”
The Frenchman Jérôme Brouillet, who has called Tahiti home for the past li’l while took the image off a boat in the channel declared, “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. It was not hard to take the picture. It was more about anticipating the moment and where Gabriel will kick off the wave.”
As a true surfer, added, “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.”
Knowing, very well, that our Pastime of Kings is an acquired taste.
Bravo, anyhow, to Medina who absolutely deserves to be the face of these Olympics and Brouillet who made art.