Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images

As the 2024 Paris Olympics draws to a close, the BBC rounds up some of the most stunning photos captured from the Games – and reveals their similarities to historic works of art.

The ancient Olympic Games were already a quarter of a millennium old when, in 530 BC, an anonymous Greek artist, known today as the "The Running Man Painter", adorned the body of a clay jug with a playful portrait of a muscular marathonist in full sprint.

Suspended in mid-stride on the vessel's cylindrical surface, the figure's unforgettable flex of form and fleet-footed physique remind us that, since antiquity, athletic expressiveness and artistic expression have striven to keep pace with each other. The line between art and sport is a blurry one.

To this day, the striking photos of exceptional Olympic moments that go viral resonate so powerfully in part because they recall and reinforce iconic images from the history of visual culture that have helped shape our consciousness. We've seen these figures before – only now, they're real. What follows is a curated round-up of some of the most memorable photos captured during the 2024 Paris Olympics, side-by-side with the paintings, drawings and sculptures whose contours they echo.

Divers/Magritte's Golconda

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (3)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (4)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (5)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (6)

The choreographed cascade of parallel plunging bodies in a photograph of Great Britain's Anthony Harding and Jack Laugher, competing on 2 August in the men's synchronised 3m springboard diving final, boldly blurred the divers' falling flesh into a static rush of blue mist. The surreal sense of anthropomorphised rain calls to mind Belgian Surrealist René Magritte's frozen shower of bowler-hatted men in his painting Golconda, which also seems to defy the gravity of logic and the logic of gravity.

Swimmers/Pollack's Blue Poles

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (7)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (8)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (9)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (10)

An aerial photo of the colourful chaos of froth and flailing limbs created when athletes competed in the swimming leg of the women's individual triathlon on 31 July seemed a celebration of disorder. One must scrutinise the turbulent tapestry of water and tattoos in order to discern the fragmentary shape of an arm here or a leg there, as the furious scramble of muscle threatens to capsize our senses. The choppy surface calls to mind the mesmerising mêlée of flung and dribbled pigment in US artist Jackson Pollock's painting Blue Poles – a canvas that conceals, under its intense tangle of splashes, shards of broken glass and the bloody footprints of the artist, who is said to have walked across the work while it was still wet.

Gabriel Medina/Garofalo's Ascension of Christ

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (11)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (12)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (13)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (14)

The ultra-viral photo of Brazil's Gabriel Medina floating heavenward after tackling a huge wave off the French Polynesian Island of Tahiti in round three of the men's surfing heats on 29 July, recalled countless religious representations of mystical ascension. What seemed to seal the surprising synchronicity of secular pose with spiritual ascent was Medina's raised right arm and the thrust of his index finger, pointing precisely to where his body and soul appeared to be heading.

Triathlon/Raffaello's Spozalizio

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (15)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (16)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (17)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (18)

A message posted to X (formerly Twitter) on 31 July by a like-minded user of the social media platform intrigued the internet, attracting more that 5 million views. Beneath a TV screenshot, @EmmaTurnerBA confessed that she was "obsessed with the finish line in the men's triathlon, it's like a renaissance piece". Precisely which canvas these various vignettes of kneeling, collapsing, embracing and loitering brought to mind wasn't clear. A Veronese, perhaps? A Botticelli? Or perhaps it isn't the huddles of mind and muscle that rhymes with any particular painting, but the fabulous framing of the momentous scene – how it draws our eye, Raphael-style, to the grandeur of a glistening palace in the distance.

Boxers/Mahonri Young's sculpture

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (19)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (20)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (21)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (22)

It is the unsettling length of the accelerating arm, flying in from the right, and punctuated by a blood-red disembodied glove that is so, well, striking. The photo, which captures the disconnection between the eyes of Spain's Enmanuel Reyes, who sees the punch by Belgium's Victor Schelstraete coming, and his body's inability to stop the brutal blow, is jaw-dropping. Nearly a century ago, the US sculptor Mahonri Young found himself hooked on a trip to Paris in 1926 by comparable hooks, which he translated into celebrated bronze sculptures of prizefighters. His unflinching statue Right to the Jaw is right to the point.

Anthony Jeanjean/Man falling from the Sky

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (23)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (24)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (25)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (26)

The tapering peak of the obelisk that rises behind French cyclist Anthony Jeanjean, captured in midair as he competes in the BMX Freestyle events on 31 July, may be pointing upwards but we all know which way gravity will ultimately drag him. However perilous, Jeanjean's weightlessness is exhilarating. The thrilling photo calls to mind the endlessly unended plummet of a figure in a 17th-Century work on paper by an unknown Flemish artist, entitled Man Falling from the Sky. How exactly the imperilled figure wheeled his way to his elevated perch isn't immediately apparent. Like Jeanjean, like us, all he can do is keep on pedalling.

Simone Biles/Edmund Thomas Parris's Flying Figure

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (27)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (28)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (29)

Seven of the Paris Olympics' most striking images – as classical artworks (30)

The split-second snap of US gymnast Simone Biles – bolting horizontally through the air as she performs on the floor during the women's artistic team finals on 30 July – seems like a still from a superhero film. This is goddess-grade grace, and one could easily summon the floating elegance of any number of Classical representations of winged figures, from Isis to Artemis, Aphrodite to Nike, to soar alongside Biles. Or perhaps the fleeting flight of an anonymous female flyer, magicked into eternal levitation from a few fragile lines of pencil by the 19th-Century London artist Edmund Thomas Parris, does the trick best – its exquisite simplicity belying its brilliance.

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FAQs

How were the Paris Olympics? ›

The host nation, France, finished fifth with 16 gold and 64 total medals. Dominica, Saint Lucia, Cape Verde and Albania won their first-ever Olympic medals, the former two both being gold, with Botswana and Guatemala also winning their first-ever gold medals.

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Did the Olympics have medals for art? ›

For the first four decades of competition, the Olympics awarded official medals for painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music, alongside those for the athletic competitions. From 1912 to 1952, juries awarded a total of 151 medals to original works in the fine arts inspired by athletic endeavors.

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When could art, music, and writing garner Olympic glory? ›

For decades, beginning with the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, the Olympics included competitions in painting, sculpture, architecture, music and literature — a “pentathlon of the Muses,” as Pierre de Coubertin, the founder and leader of the modern Olympics, called them.

Why are there five Olympic rings? ›

Why are there only five rings on an Olympic flag? The International Olympic Committee follows the five-continent model, typically followed in multiple parts of the world, which says that there are five continents in the planet: America, Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania.

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How many Olympics were in Paris? ›

For many years, the organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games had been announcing that their event would revolutionise the genre. From 26 July to 11 August, the 33rd Olympiad, the third to be held in the French capital following those of 1900 and 1924, produced a succession of memorable images and highlights.

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Why is art no longer in the Olympics? ›

The juried art competitions were abandoned in 1954 because artists were considered to be professionals, while Olympic athletes were required to be amateurs. Since 1956, the Olympic cultural programme has taken their place.

Was singing ever in the Olympics? ›

Yes, there were competitions in poetry and song during an Olympiad, but they were not held at the actual Olympics.

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How did France do in the last Olympics? ›

The Americans were jubilant at the finish, having won the title for a 10th time, and the French were crestfallen, but a crushed atmosphere soon turned to cheers of support. As the silver medals were awarded to France, the home crowd burst into a rousing rendition final rendition of La Marseillaise.

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Which country won the Paris Olympics in 2024? ›

The USA and China share the title of the most gold medals, claiming 40 each. It was a close call, with Team USA's women's basketball claiming victory in the final event of the Games to ultimately tie with China. In third place was Japan (20), then Australia (18), France (16), Netherlands (15) and Great Britain (14).

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Who closed the Olympics in 2024? ›

And so the curtain falls on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games! After two magnificent weeks, this epic celebration of sport and fellowship ends as it began, with another ceremony directed by Thomas Jolly and his team. Unsurprisingly, the closing ceremony is the hottest ticket in town!

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Who took the most gold medals in the 2024 Olympics? ›

Team USA brought home 126 medals including 40 gold, 44 silver and 42 bronze. This year marks the first time in Olympic history, the gold count at the end of the Olympics was tied between the U.S. and China.