AFP photographer Jerome Brouillet knew fireworks were in store when he saw Brazilian Olympic surfer Gabriel Medina paddle into one of the biggest waves of the day on one of the toughest surf breaks in the world.

Little did he know that his photo of Medina jumping out of a wave after a record-breaking drive at the Tahiti Olympics would become a worldwide sensation and likely become a defining image of the sport and the Games.

Brouillet was on a boat in the channel, an area of ​​deeper, calmer water on the side of the gulf, but without a clear view of the original action.

But it was exactly where he wanted to be.

Brouillet was in an excellent position and waited for Medina to make his move, that is, to leave the wave at the end of his run.

“Every photographer is waiting for that. You know that Gabriel Medina, especially at Teahupo’o, is going to kick things off and do something,” Brouillet said.

“You know something is going to happen. The only tricky part is where is he going to kick? Because I’m blind!

“Sometimes he makes an acrobatic gesture and this time he did that and so I pressed the button.”

Brouillet saw Medina floating upright above the waves, one finger pointing into the air and his surfboard pointing upwards at his side.

“I think when he was in the tube, he knew he was in one of the biggest waves of the day. He jumps out of the water like, ‘Man, I think this is a 10,'” Brouillet said.

Brouillet suspected he had also caught something special, but wasn’t 100 percent sure.

“When I shoot at Teahupo’o I don’t do it in high burst mode because if you press the button too hard at the end of the day you come back with 5,000 images in a day, and I don’t like that!”

“I took four pictures of him out of the water and one of the four pictures was this picture.”

The photo has been used in countless publications around the world and shared or liked online millions of times.

“This could be the greatest sports photo of all time,” Australian media group News.com.au posted on its Facebook page.

TIME magazine described it as “the defining image of the triumph of the 2024 Summer Olympics.”

Medina posted the image to his own Instagram account and quickly received more than 2.4 million likes.

Despite all the accolades, Brouillet said he had to wait a little longer to celebrate because he still had a few games to shoot.

“I’m staying with a friend near Teahupo’o and we’re going to take it easy because if the event is tomorrow I have to get up at 5am!”