Sochi Top 10

My brain is fried and my body is numb. I’m not high, but I have been covering the Winter Olympics. The gruelling, 17-day event tests your patience, endurance and skills as a photojournalist. Not unlike the athletes competing at the Games, you experience failures and gold medal days.

In the past two weeks I’ve covered 45 events, taken 80 bus rides, and shot 30,000 images.

Over the course of the Olympics there are so many incredible moments on and off the field of play. Reducing that much work to a single favourite image made for some difficult choices. In looking through my body of work, it wasn’t peak action or the winning moment that resonated the most for me, but an overwhelming sense of relief.

The night Canadian ice dance partners Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir received their sliver medal in ice dance, there was controversy over the judging and their coach, who they share with the rival gold medal Americans, and speculation swirled over whether this was the dynamic duo’s final Olympic performance.

The ceremony is a staged and staid event, and it is almost always in the first few seconds after receiving their medal that the athletes express the most raw emotions. Holding hands, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir had just stepped off the covered medal podium into the pouring rain. A gleeful Virtue waved to the crowd of Canadians and Moir looked straight up into the deluge, closed his eyes, and let everything else go as he embraced the moment.

John Lehmann