Tokyo 2020 21

You’ll remember the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, like most events that year had to be postponed due to the global pandemic. In 2021, I had the incredible privilege of working as a camera operator for the Olympic Broadcasting Service at the rescheduled Games, covering surfing’s Olympic debut.
(This was a huge honour for someone who grew up with surfing at pretty much the centre of their universe!)

At the time, Japan was still very much closed to visitors, and the running of the Games wasn’t fully supported by the Japanese public. That said it all went ahead, albeit under some very strict regulations. As a crew we were accommodated in a designated quarantine hotel, which we weren’t allowed to leave other than to perform our broadcast duties or for a daily 15 minute dinner run to the nearby 7-Eleven. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.

Given the fact that the surf event, like all major surf contests, had an event window from which the officials had to select the best days in terms of surf conditions, not every day was a shoot day, and as such we spent a good few days cooped up in the hotel.

This series of photographs, was taken mostly from the hotel fire escape, a few from the evening dinner runs and a few from the bus transfers to the event site. The major limitation in terms of my quarantine restrictions challenged me in terms of how to best use the limited access I had to the outside world. It was a pleasantly rewarding exercise, but here’s hoping for a more typical Olympic Games experience in Tahiti*. 

*(The surf event for the Paris Games is being held at the infamous Teahupo'o, in Tahiti, French Polynesia)