Best sports photos of 2025: The stories behind the images

Great journalism without brilliant photography is like Christmas dinner without roast potatoes.

Getty Images’ team of award-winning photographers covered more than 50,000 sports events in 2025, from grassroots tournaments watched by a few dozen fans to World Cups seen by millions around the globe.

BBC Sport brings you the best sports photos of the past 12 months – and the photographers explain the stories behind them.

Ever wondered how you get a picture at the top of the pole vault? What is a ‘star filter’? And how much does luck play a part in capturing amazing images?

There’s a bonus point if you can spot the photographer in their own photo…

Christian Petersen: It was an honour to be part of the World Athletics Championship in Tokyo, where I set out to capture unique images and fresh perspectives. Noah Lyles’ signature pre-race vertical leap inspired me to shoot from high above and behind, creating a new view that highlighted the graphic lines of the track. I was very happy with the result.

Adam Pretty: I took this picture at the relatively new Surftown wave pool in Munich, where some elite French Polynesian surfers had booked private training sessions. Athletes use the pool to focus on training specific manoeuvres and aerials on the perfectly consistent man-made wave.

I photographed Aelan Vaast, the sister of 2024 Olympic surfing gold medallist Kauli Vaast, as she performed a layback hack on the final section of the wave. The image was shot in the early morning before the sun was up. I used a flash to create the silhouette of her against the bright blue water of the pool and the spray she was throwing with her massive turn.

Molly Darlington: I took this photo after the Women’s Rugby World Cup final in the winners’ studio, when the emotions were high and the players were super excited. It is my favourite photo I took from the tournament. Zoe Aldcroft and head coach John Mitchell are a perfect combination, summing up what it feels like to win the World Cup. What you can’t see in the picture is all the players and staff who piled into the dressing room, throwing confetti and streamers and cheering them on. It was a special moment.

Mahmoud Khaled: I am always searching for grassroots football tournaments in Egypt’s villages and working-class neighbourhoods, where spontaneity meets pure passion. The Al-Qudah tournament in Sharqia was one of the most impressively organised I have seen, almost like a professional league match: huge crowds, co-ordinated team entrances, players from the lower divisions, and even referees who officiate in the Egyptian Premier League.

What I love most is the journey itself, from discovering the story to reaching the place. The real reward comes afterward, seeing the joy on people’s faces when they see their photos published.

This frame was taken during the final, capturing the moment a player from Al-Ghaba takes a penalty in the shootout after a 2–2 draw. Al-Numan eventually lifted the trophy.

Pool photo: The image – taken during the most exciting competition of the World Athletics Championships – illustrates Sweden’s superstar Armand Duplantis’ dominance in the pole vault final.

A tiny camera, no bigger than a pack of cards, was mounted next to the support for the bar, and a customised technical solution allowed the photographer to trigger it remotely and receive the frame live on his laptop within seconds.

Duplantis cleared 6.30m in this competition, broke the world record for the 14th time and secured his third world title. It is an exceptional achievement by the athlete and a fantastic piece of work by the photographer to capture the very best at the peak of the action.

Matthias Hangst, Getty Images director of content

Dean Mouhtaropoulos: Living in the Netherlands, I am lucky to cover speed skating, one of our national sports, although most of it is indoors.

This event was near the Dolomites in Italy. Shooting such dynamic and talented athletes in an outdoor setting is a photographer’s dream. A nearby building cast an afternoon shadow over the track. Once I spotted it, I quickly ran up the stand, hoping the clouds would not reappear. Some fans watching, plus my shadow, left a nice shape on the ice, leaving me to wait for the skaters to enter the frame.

Emilee Chinn: Geordie Beamish is shown going down after getting caught in the congestion of the early laps of the 3,000m steeplechase at the World Championships.

Along with capturing the split second another runner’s foot connected with his face during the fall, what makes this image so powerful and moving to me is that Beamish got up, finished second in the heat, and went on to win the gold medal. Moments like this are what make sports photography so rewarding, reminding us how resilience can turn a setback into something remarkable.

Dario Belingheri: An unusual moment through the Tuscan hills during the one-day race Strade Bianche, where the gravel sectors and dust are its distinctive beauty. I was a bit lucky to catch the right moment when a train passes next to the peloton in a cloud of dust, so it is perfectly blended with nature.

Cameron Spencer: As the northern hemisphere works through winter, we are fortunate in Australia to start the year with a major international event in the middle of our summer, the Australian Open in Melbourne.

In this image, Holger Rune is stretching full length to play a forehand against Zhizhen Zhang. I captured it from an elevated position high above the court in a ‘catwalk’. Taking a step back, I was able to shoot through the ceiling rafters. These, combined with the harsh shadows cast by the roofline, created an opportunity to capture an interesting shape on the bright blue court, then I waited patiently for Rune to play a dynamic shot behind the baseline.

Michael Reaves: This photo was taken during a Major League Baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Often in sports photography you can plan for the big moments and control factors with light, moment and composition, but other times luck comes into play. This is one of those moments.

While shooting a mundane at-bat, Henry Davis broke his bat. Usually broken bats explode forward and out of frame, but this one broke on a centre point and created a unique image with the ball still in frame and the split bat floating in time, almost comically.

Matthias Hangst: This photograph was taken during the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Leipzig. The event was held at the Leipziger Messe, a very functional trade-fair complex and not always the most visually appealing setting. The roof structure was full of steel construction elements with plenty of light reflections, creating a rather distracting background.

To work around this, I decided to use a ‘star filter’ – a layer of glass attached to the front of the lens that refracts light in a specific way. It adds a touch of elegance and helps highlight the dynamics of Sweden’s Maya Staahl during her beam routine.

Yong Teck Lim: Photo positions at the World Para Swimming Championships in Singapore were fixed, making it hard to get creative. Still, China’s Jincheng Guo was impossible to overlook – competing without goggles, cap and tech suit, and throwing in his trademark bubble technique for good measure.

For the first three days he swam only 50m events, leaving me little to capture. On day four the 200m individual medley finally gave me an opening. I went in tight, hoping to catch that bubble magic, and managed this single frame that looks like a UFO. His gold-medal finish made the shot even sweeter.

Maja Hitij: Trophy-lift photos may look simple, but they require a bit of planning. Agencies and photographers divide responsibilities and co-ordinate positions in advance because the entire moment lasts only a few seconds.

I wanted to find a different angle after the Champions League final – not the usual spot in front. I tried moving farther back, but the field was crowded with security, TV crews and players, so I settled on a position slightly further to the right, away from most photographers. I got lucky – the confetti was released earlier than expected, covering the whole background as the Paris St-Germain players turned toward Marquinhos.

Judit Cartiel: During the second half of the La Liga match at Espanyol, Atletico Madrid’s Giuliano Simeone started a run down the wing. While following the play from the corner with my camera, I saw Simeone approaching the assistant referee. He collided with him and I quickly decided to keep the focus on the official. I was looking to capture a moment that was unusual in football, where the player usually takes the spotlight.

The image shows the assistant completely upside down in an acrobatic posture, with a funny expression on his face, creating a photograph with a comical tone.

Christian Petersen: Covering alpine skiing is one of the most challenging and rewarding assignments for me. I am always searching for graphic elements to complement the intense action. Slalom’s bright gates against the white snow create a striking visual canvas. This image, taken at the Ski World Cup Finals in Idaho, captures that perfectly, blending the racer’s motion with a sweep of vivid colour.

Al Bello: This was an undercard fight before the main event. I like to shoot the undercards because I can try to take more chances with my photo technique. In this case I was shooting tighter than usual, hoping to catch a punch landing. The risk of shooting so tight is that if there is a knockdown you will likely miss the picture. I timed the punch at the exact moment, freezing the full force of the impact on the face.

Hannah Peters: I had been looking forward to the Crankworx mountain biking festival in Rotorua, New Zealand, because it often makes good pictures, but was disappointed when I set off early that morning to clouds and no light.

After about 30 minutes’ walking and finding a good spot for the warm-up rounds, the sun suddenly broke through for about five minutes. There was only time for two riders to make their runs, so it was a bit of good fortune that Tim Bringer managed to pull off a pretty awesome trick.

Stu Forster: This is the most exciting England cricket team to photograph in my career, with players like Jamie Smith at the forefront. You cannot take your eyes off it for a single ball. Here, Smith shows off his footballing skills to stop the ball from ricocheting on to the stumps during the Lord’s Test. It was before this match that I read that the young Smith had been coached in his youth by Matt Holmes, formerly the cricket photography editor at Getty Images. It’s a small world.

Adam Pretty: I have been trying to photograph water polo from the beginning of my sports photography career in 1998, as it has the potential for some amazing images. But it is so difficult to capture them because of the nature of the sport and the unpredictability of the water – the splashes and speed at which the drama happens.

This image was extremely fortunate as the timing had to be perfect. I was not in control of anything apart from my camera, which was in an underwater robotic housing at the bottom of the pool. I had to rely on the match beginning at the perfect time, and the athlete diving in just the right way to pass through a tiny pocket of light.

Fortunately, everything came together to create the image, and that is what I love about sports photography – it takes a number of elements or layers to create a memorable image.

Tom Banks/McKlein Photography: Viera do Minho, a stage of Rally Portugal, features undulating roads and landscape scattered with large, round granite boulders.

Having never shot this area myself, we hitched a ride up the mountainside to a remote stretch with the local 4×4 club – an experience in itself. After scouting various vantage points I settled in the valley and awaited the cars. As Adrien Fourmaux blasted into view, the fans delivered a perfectly timed wave of the Portuguese flag – complemented by the arrival of the low-flying TV helicopter.

It is one of those moments when everything aligns.

Shi Tang: This image captures a dynamic Tomoka Miyazaki of Japan mid-motion, rendered with a long-exposure effect that transforms her movement into flowing streaks of red light. The blurred trails emphasise the power and fluidity of the action, while the sharpness of her focused expression adds contrast and intensity. Set against a dark background, the vibrant colours and sweeping motion create an almost abstract, dance-like composition.

Dean Mouhtaropoulos: Photographing the best athletes at the height of their powers is one of the many joys of my job. Covering the men’s javelin F46 final at the World Para Athletics Championships in New Delhi, I noticed Guillermo Varona Gonzalez with a different pre-throw routine than most. Positioning myself low on the ground before his run-up, he would leap and double click his heels.

The power in this leap would be enough to make a strong image, but the red clothing, impressive physique, javelin in hand and black sky all combined to made one of my favourite images of the year.

Seb Daly/Sportsfile: For the uninitiated, this is hurling – an Irish sport that is incredibly fast, very skilful and, as this image shows, highly physical. These two players are merely getting to know each other at the start of the match – a little «pulling and dragging», as the locals might say, in an effort to throw an opponent off their game, to get into their head, assert a little dominance.

All while this is going on, there is also a match to capture. It is a busy, raw, unique, and fantastic spectacle.

Michael Reaves: This photo was taken during game one of baseball’s National League Division Series in Milwaukee. I was excited when they announced the mid-afternoon game time and was hoping the weather would hold off so the roof would stay open. The sun peaked for an inning while Aaron Ashby pitched and, from my position in the first base well, I was able to make a wide frame. I exposed for the highlights and let the shadows of the stadium create a compositionally pleasing frame as he delivered a pitch.

Maddie Meyer: In professional sports there is often such a distance between fans and athletes. It can feel sterile and as a photographer it can be hard to bring the atmosphere of the crowd and an athlete into one frame. Here Rory McIlroy ran to the adoring Europe fans after his team’s win over the USA in the Ryder Cup in New York.

He appeared to fully give in to the moment, allowing the fans to embrace him over the barricade. As a photographer it can be challenging to make a well composed image in a chaotic scene, but I like this picture and think it tells the story of Europe’s triumph on away territory.