Monday, August 12, 2024

What a GREAT way to end the Olympics for the men of USA Water Polo!

Let me start this blog post by saying that in the past Olympics that I have photographed for USA Water Polo (ever since London in 2012), the women have medaled and the men have not. Actually there were times when the men did not even make the quarter finals. It was tough to watch, seeing the frustration on their faces.

In Paris, things did not start out that strong for the men and I thought "uh oh, here we go again", but that was not going to be the case. 

The men made it to the semi-finals but did not win the game to move on to the gold medal match. They ended up being matched up against Hungary, which is a very good team, to fight it out for the bronze medal. And remember, the American men had not medaled in 16 years. 

Let me take you through the game and my photo story along with that.


The bronze medal match started with each team huddling up in front of their own net. I knew that the men always kick high at the end of their talk. I was using the Canon R1, and the Canon RF 100-300mm lens with an RF 1.4 tele-adaptor (because this is a bigger pool and to give me a little more reach). I was ready for that moment.


I knew that Adrian Weinberg, the 22 year old goaltender, would have to have a great game for the team to win a medal. And boy did he ever! I got this shot of him deflecting the ball off of his wrist. If you look closely, you can see the water spraying off of his hand. (Even though I change settings throughout the game, depending on the glare off the water and other situations, for this shot I was at ISO 1600, f/4, and a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second) 


I love capturing the spray of the water, which is really apparent with this block.


I saw Alex Bowen defending against the Hungarian athlete and fired off some shots. During a break, when reviewing the photos in the camera, I saw this and really liked it. I love the way that there is water and action basically framing the Olympic Rings (which were in the clear). 


And as you have seen in other water polo blog posts, I love getting photos with the athletes kicking themselves high out of the water.

At one point towards the end of the game, the men were down by two goals and it looked like Hungary was going to get the win. But the men of USA Water Polo rallied and scored numerous goals to send the game into overtime.

Now...I have been through a couple of overtime games during these Olympics and it did not go well. And once again I was nervous about the outcome of this game. I was about to text my contact with the team, but since we were texting when the women lost in overtime, I was not about to jinx anything. I texted him a note to say "I am not texting any more!" 


The shootout began and the Hungarians could not score!


But we sure found a way to find the back of the net. Here is a photo showing Max Irving winding up for the big score.


And he loved it!


Once again the Hungarians tried to score but Adrian was like a wall.


It was up to Alex Bowen to close it out for the men. He is known for having one of the hardest shots in the game. And he did not disappoint. He scored the big goal to clinch it all!


I quickly reframed to the bench to catch this moment. Love it!


I then quickly moved the lens to focus on Hilary, Alex's fiancĂ© going crazy in the stands. 


And then back to the pool to get the guys reactions. 


These smiles say it all.



Alex has played in many Olympics and never had any medal to show for it, and the emotion of the win had him all choked up. I love that pure emotion.


If you have been reading the blog for many years or for just these Olympics, you know that my movement is very limited on the pool deck. But once we got our win, I got approval to move around a little more and get these much needed photos for the team.


Some of the guys were asking "Hey Jeff, can you take...?" and I told them "Anything for you guys!" They were soaking it all in.


I told Alex that we should go back by the stands and get a photo of him and Hilary (who are getting married in less than a month).

The bronze medal game was at 10:30am here in Paris, but we then had to wait for the gold medal match to happen so that they could do the medal ceremony with all three teams. That game was at 2pm with the medal ceremony planned around 3:30pm This gave me time to retouch all the photos from the game and the post game celebrations, grab a quick lunch across the street, and then head back to the pool to get the very important medal photos.


I brought two cameras with me on the pool deck. I had the Canon R1 with the big lens and the Canon R5 MKII with an RF 24-70mm lens for the wide shots (like this one). Honestly, I was not happy with how close the athletes were to the fans. It does not create enough separation between them and the background, even at f/4.


As the men were getting their medals, I turned around and saw the coaching staff sitting behind me. I had to get a photo of them too.


I figured that we would have at least 5 minutes to get more team photos, and I looked for a better place for photos. I saw this LED wall and knew that this was the place.

As it turned out, we had lots more time than we thought so I took portraits of each player.


Here is Adrian Weinberg wrapped in the flag...


...and the four guys who have been to 3 Olympics together.


After doing the individual portraits, I was firing off group after group.



It was such a great moment and we made the most of it! 


And I even got to have some fun with the guys and their medals.

This is one of my favorite photos from the entire Olympics, and I didn't even take it! Thank goodness I have been teaching Greg how to do back-button focus and how to use the camera. He nailed this one!

And that my friends made for one hell of an ending for all of us. 

Then I headed to the Closing Ceremony, assuming that Paris would do much better than the Opening Ceremony. And that did NOT happen. But wait, that is the next blog post. 

It did not matter, because nothing was going to tarnish the elation from earlier in the day!



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