The images that have defined the Paris Olympics

The two weeks of Olympic competition have brought us record-breaking athleticism on a global stage like no other. We take a look back at the iconic images that defined this year’s Olympic games and talk to the photographers at Getty Images about what it was like to capture them.

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Amna Nawaz: Well, the last two weeks of Olympic competition have brought us record-breaking athleticism on a global stage like no other.

Geoff Bennett: Now we take a look back at the iconic images that defined this year’s Olympic Games and talk to the photographers at Getty Images about what it was like to capture them.

Naomi Baker, Getty Images: I’m Naomi Baker, a photographer at Getty Images. I’m covering the gymnastics here in Paris.

They’re such incredible athletes, and the power that they have. I mean, you take Simone, for example. Like, the height she gets, it’s just unbelievable. So what you can show in your photos from what they do is just amazing opportunities to have.

Charles McQuillan, Getty Images: I’m Charles McQuillan, photographer based in Ireland, here in France working at the Paris Olympics.

It’s actually the first time I have ever shot the Olympics. So, in some respects, I was going into it with fresh eyes, which is quite a good thing sometimes.

Adam Pretty, Getty Images: My name’s Adam Pretty. I’m a sports photographer with Getty Images.

And I’m currently at my 12th Olympic Games. The reason I was so attracted to filming underwater or aquatic sports was just the beauty of light mixed with water and the unpredictability. You can shoot swimming for 20 years — and I have done — and you still don’t know exactly which way the water is going to fall, what’s going to happen.

And it’s that unexpected element, which I think is what makes, like, a beautiful sports picture.

Michael Heiman, Vice President of Global Sport, Getty Images: My name is Michael Heiman. I’m the vice president of global sport for Getty Images.

So the Summer Olympics are by far the biggest sporting event that we cover in the four-year cycle. We cover every single day of competition, but it’s over 10,000 athletes. You have 35 venues. We will shoot over five million images during these Games.

It’s important because everyone has a camera nowadays in their pocket, right? I think what’s important for us as photojournalists is to capture those moments in a way that other people can’t to really show the power of sport through a still image.

Naomi Baker: There are so many athletes. And, in gymnastics, everything can happen. For me, Simone is like the first big athlete I have photographed.

I want to say the number of photographers one day I think Simone was on the beam, it was 160 in one position. And you think you’re like, you’re one in that. So what are you going to do that’s different than everyone else next to you?

She has all that pressure around her, but when she just does something, it’s almost like it just comes so natural. It’s kind of amazing to watch. And I feel like, in that photo, she almost just looks so poised, and she makes it look easy, basically.

Charles McQuillan: Some people may be familiar with my photographs of Korean shooter Kim Ye-ji, which went viral during the Olympics.

It’s quite a methodical, a very slow process for the athletes to shoot, so it’s not an action-packed sport, per se. So I kind of ended up reverting back to what I normally do, which is trying to capture faces maybe more than the actual shooting at times. And I think that’s what happened with Kim, because, straight away, to me, anyway, she was instantly striking.

She had a nonchalance, a kind of coolness that you could see straight away. I actually said to one of my colleagues that she kind of looks like a movie assassin.

Adam Pretty: I mean, photographing swimming underwater is a big challenge. I mean, there’s so many little things that can go wrong.

In Paris, we have a new underwater robotic camera and it basically gives you full control over that camera as if you were underwater. At the Olympics, I want to record history. Like, if it’s a big moment, like a world record, I want to get the best possible picture I can of that.

So you really need to be pretty knowledgeable about the sport and about the athlete. I mean, once the athletes finish the race, especially in the spring races, it’s often maybe a 10th of a second between first and last. So you really have to pay attention to see who’s won, and then it’s tough to read the reactions.

Sometimes, you’re on someone and they’re not reacting and you’re like, oh, they mustn’t have won and you go off them, and they go crazy. So you have really got to try and pay attention to who is actually winning the race. And I think that’s where you get some of those great pictures as well, when they just explode with emotion.

Michael Heiman: You see emotion at the Olympics you don’t always see in other sports. And I think it’s because, for certain disciplines, this is the top, top, top place you could ever be.

If you’re a badminton player or a table tennis player or a speed climber, these athletes have trained their lives for these moments. And I think they deserve to be seen.

Amna Nawaz: It’s a whole story, every single one of those images.