Photographer Jerome Brouillet is having a double-gold Olympics with his camera work during the surfing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics in Tahiti.
As athletes Tatiana Weston-Webb from Brazil and Brisa Hennessy of Costa Rica competed in a semifinal match, a whale breached, giving spectators and photographers the Olympic moment of a lifetime.
It’s not uncommon for wild animals such as birds, seals and even sharks to appear while surfing around the world.
In Tahiti, where the 2024 Olympics surfing competition was held almost 10,000 miles away from the host city of Paris, whales gather around the islands during mating, birthing and migration season.
Tahiti also has several maritime protected zones. In April, Pacific Indigenous leaders, including some from Tahiti, signed a treaty recognizing whales as “legal persons,” although such a declaration is not reflected in the laws of participating nations.
