Surfer Gabriel Medina Appears to Float Mid-Air in Viral Photo Snapped at 2024 Summer Olympics

The Brazilian athlete earned the highest single-wave score in Olympic history

Gabriel Medina may have scored a record-making 9.90 during Day 3 of the 2024 Summer Olympics competition, but a photo of the Brazilian surf star is getting 10s across the board.

The picture — taken by photographer Jerome Brouillet from Agence France-Presse on Monday, July 29 — appeared to show Medina floating in mid-air, his hand in the air and his finger pointed to the sky as his surfboard hovered behind him.

It was snapped 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 competition, cut the field of Olympic champ hopefuls from 16 to eight.

In the fifth heat, Medina was facing off against Kanoa Igarashi, the Japanese surfer who beat him at the inaugural surfing Olympics event at the 2021 Tokyo Games and eventually won silver.

At first, both men were on par, each catching smaller waves. But in his second run, Medina caught what would propel him into the history books — the best wave of the day.

Flying down the barrel with ease, Medina raised his hands towards the judges to show the number "10" before propelling himself over the back of the wave and free-falling towards the sky.

Scoring a 9.9, the athlete earned the highest single-wave score in Olympic history. NBC Sports broadcasters said on Monday's broadcast that he's favored to take home the gold — though the athlete still has two more rounds to go.

Related: Men’s Triathlon Postponed at Paris 2024 Olympics Over Concerns of Water Quality in Seine

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.

The popularity even took Brouillet by surprise.

I was just checking my phone on the six-minute break after the shoot and I had lots of notifications on social media," he recalled in an interview with The Guardian. "I thought something is happening with this shot and it was shared on ESPN."

“It’s very cool, it’s a nice shot and lots of people love it," he added. "It’s not really a surf photograph so it captures the attention of more people."

Related: Colin Jost Gets a Gnarly Toe Injury While Commentating Surfing for 2024 Paris Olympics in Tahiti: 'It's Going Great'

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He went on to call the conditions for the shot "perfect."

"The waves were taller than we expected,” Brouillet said. "So [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," he added. "It was more about anticipating the moment and where Gabriel will kick off the wave.”

To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. And sign up for Going for Gold, our Olympics newsletter, to get the biggest stories from the Games delivered straight to your inbox. Watch the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, beginning July 26, on NBC and Peacock.

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