Surfer Gabriel Medina floats in viral photo from 2024 Summer Olympics

Gabriel Medina may have scored a record 9.90 on day three of the 2024 Summer Olympics, but a photo of the Brazilian surfer gets a 10 on all fronts.

The photo, taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jerome Brouillet on Monday, July 29, appeared to show Medina floating in the air, his hand raised and his finger pointing towards the sky as his surfboard floated behind him.

The photo was taken in Teahupo’o on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, where the Paris Games surfing competition is taking place. Monday’s event, the third round of the competition, reduced the number of Olympic champions from 16 to eight.

In the fifth heat, Medina took on Kanoa Igarashi, the Japanese surfer who defeated him in the first surfing event at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, eventually winning silver.

At first, both men were evenly matched, each with smaller waves. But on his second run, Medina caught what would propel him into history: the best wave of the day.

Medina flew effortlessly through the barrel and raised his hands to the judges to show the number “10.” He then jumped over the back of the wave and free-falled into the air.

With a score of 9.9, the athlete earned the highest single-wave score in Olympic history. NBC Sports broadcasters said on Monday that he is the favorite to take home the gold — even though the athlete has two rounds left to compete.

Medal or not, Medina is a champion in the eyes of social media. His photo has gone viral, with over 3 million likes on his own Instagram alone.

Even Brouillet was surprised by the popularity.

“I was just checking my phone during the six-minute break after shooting and I had a bunch of social media notifications,” he recalled in an interview with The guard. “I thought there was something going on with this photo and it was shared on ESPN.”

“It’s very cool, it’s a nice picture and a lot of people love it,” he added. “It’s not really a surf picture, so it gets more people’s attention.”

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He called the conditions for the recording “perfect.”

“The waves were bigger than we expected,” Brouillet said. “So (Medina) is on the backside 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 wasn’t hard to get the shot,” he added. “It was more about anticipating the moment and where Gabriel would start the wave.”

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