Sport and image: a unique evolution told through a rich and unseen visual heritage from Olymipc Museum and Photo Elysée collections. With the rise of photography in the late 19th century, coinciding with the first modern Olympic Games, sport and imagery have evolved together. For over a century, major sporting events have been accompanied by photographs capturing athletes’ performances and the excitement of competition. Le sport à l’épreuve explores this unique relationship through a rich and largely unseen visual heritage. A section of the Le sport à l’épreuve exhibition is also on display at the Olympic Museum from

First unveiled at the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles in France in 2024, this exhibition, co-produced by Photo Elysée and the Olympic Museum, explores the fundamental role of photography in the media coverage of sport since the late 19th century.

The evolution of sports photography

For over a century, major sports events have been accompanied by images. With the rise of amateur photography in the late 19th century, coinciding with the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, photography and sport have, in many ways, evolved together. To gain visibility, sports events obviously need photographic images.

Sports performance and photography

Involving the quest for performance, combining effort with movement, the practice of sport follows precise rules, and competition sport becomes a form of live show. The staging of sport is relayed by the photographers who take their place around the stadium. Watched and played everywhere, from the most industrialised to the most isolated parts of the globe, the show that sport offers is coveted by the media, finance and politics alike. Major events attract ever larger crowds and gain an increasingly global audience thanks to images. Sports performance, on which cameras are focused, becomes the demonstration of a social model.

The role of photography

Photography has unquestionably played an essential role in this process, generating a mass audience. Sport in focus draws on the vast photographic collections of the Olympic Museum and Photo Elysée. During major competitions, photographs are designed to draw attention to athletes' performances. By exploring a largely unseen photographic heritage, the exhibition reveals the visual grammar of sports photography through several focus areas: media coverage, starting in Athens in 1896; technique, seeking to capture movement by freeze frame; composition, which influences the visual narration and builds the celebration of sport; figures, who take their place in the stadium where athletes face a crowd gripped by emotion; and photographers, some of whom use sports photography purely to document the feat while others treat it as an artistic medium. All these aspects combine to offer a narrative that shines a spotlight on sports photography and the Olympic Games in particular.

Dialogue between two collections

Sport in focus is a chance to create a dialogue between two photography collections, those of Photo Elysée, which contain over a million items, and those of the Olympic Museum, which hosts the largest and most complete collection of Olympic heritage in the world, including artefacts, archives, images, books and films. Its mission, as the cultural and heritage arm of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is to make Olympism and Olympic culture accessible and relevant to all.

Olympism made visible

Photo Elysée is also presenting the Olympism made visible exhibition, a photographic project which highlights the impact of Olympism around the world. This series, initiated by the IOC, illustrates how the Olympic values go beyond competition, and are reflected in a variety of cultural and social contexts.