Story behind the epic Olympic photo: Gabriel Medina, the superhuman surfer, and a dexterous photographer Brouillet
The frenzied, human fingers of photographer Jerome Brouillet turned surfer Gabriel Medina into a superhuman. In the now-iconic Olympic photograph, the Brazilian is seen floating with the Pacific clouds, the index finger of his right hand is raised upwards like he is blessing someone, bearing an uncanny resemblance with the Renaissance era paintings of Jesus Christ. Tied to the sole of his left leg and soaring parallel with him is the surfing board, like a detached wing, like the Greek figure from mythology, Icarus, the man who flew with wings of wax, but too close to the sun.
Brouillet, an amateur surfer and a decade-long resident of Tahiti where the surfing instalment of the Olympics is unfolding, 10,000-odd miles from Paris in the French Polynesia, would undersell his own compositional genius. “If you know how to use your camera—you can take good images of surfing in Teahupo’o. All the rest is experience, timing, and a bit of luck! This differentiates a good shot,” he told The Times magazine.
“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,” he explained the moments behind his moment of fame.
As simple as he made it sound, the coincidence of being at the right place at the right time, Medina made it look effortless, as though he were striking a premeditated pose, as though in the rush of waters he knew the perfect moment too. Except that he had just rode a beastly wave and emerged from the tube ride (also known as the barrel ride, that is when a surfer rides inside a hollowed-out wave face, a difficult art at the best of times).
He has a rich oeuvre of similar stunts. Last year he performed an alley oop, wherein he raced along the wave and then launched into the air, turning back toward where he came from, and rotated a little more than 360 degrees. He landed backwards on the wave and then slid another 180 degrees to ride in facing forward. He has mastered the superman manoeuvre too, in which the surfer slides his surfboard down the line, goes up, kicks the board, then grabs the rail, and reconnects before landing.
Well folks, I think I’ve found the “Photo of the Day.” My goodness, what a shot of Gabriel Medina!
📸 Jerome Brouillet/AFP via Getty Images pic.twitter.com/A6l9yyM3oF
— Kendall Baker (@kendallbaker) July 29, 2024
Little wonder then that he goes by the name Ronaldinho on a surfboard in his hometown Maresias, a coastal town in the football mad city of Sao Paulo, where his stepfather introduced him to the sport. “I have played a bit of football in my childhood, but I have enjoyed swimming and surfing,” he told the Surfer magazine.
The Atlantic Ocean was literally the backyard of his house. “The kind of waves we had were perfect to become a professional surface. It was strong and hard,” he would explain as he progressed to claim three world championship titles. Most satisfying was that he performed the trick—that incidentally turned out to be the highest single wave score in Olympics history (9.90 ) and secured quarterfinal qualification—in one of the most dangerous circuits in the world.
The name of the venue, the Tahitian Reef of Teahupo’o (pronounced cho-poo), literally means “the wall of skulls”. There are several origin stories. One of them is that the explorer James Cook found skulls floating on the water. Another one is that tribal villages used to display skulls of the slain enemies on a wall at the entrance of their villages. Whatever the myth be, it has a deathly ring to it.
Surfers consider Teahupo’o as the birthplace of surfing—accounts were discovered from the diary of Cook, where he has mentioned locals surfing with canoes—the waves are considered the heaviest and most powerful in the world, though not the tallest. Treacherous swells (the energy powered by strong winds that produce wave trains) and imposing barrels make it enjoyable only for professionals. The ragged coral reef is shallow, at some spots even 25 inches deep.
In 2000, a local surfer was killed when attempting to duck a ferocious wave. “It’s not like other waves. Usually, you can see these giant swells on the horizon. At Teahupo’o … the whole ocean moves forward. You don’t see lines coming,” surfer Garrett McNamara observed. “It’s like dropping into a vert-ramp. First you need skill and bravery to drop in, then instinct kicks in,” British coach Luke Dillon said.
But Medina despises the word “brave”. “We are always projected as the embodiment of bravado, men fighting and conquering the waves. But we have an insecure, human side too. I suffered a roller coaster of emotions in and out of water,” he said two years ago, when he was riding a wave of depression. Last year, though, he made a resounding comeback, and has now immortalised himself into the Olympics folklore. But his gymnastics on the wave would have gone uncelebrated but for the instincts of Brouillet, whose fingers rendered a human surfer superhuman.
