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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Jonny Weeks

Heat seekers: amazing thermal images from the Winter Olympics

A ski-cross athlete captured using a thermal imaging camera at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
A ski-cross athlete captured using a thermal imaging camera at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Photograph: Héctor Vivas/Getty Images

While most photographers are striving to ‘freeze’ motion using traditional cameras at the Winter Olympics this month, a creative trio from the photo agency Getty Images are seeking something much more unexpected: heat.

Equipped with compact thermal-imaging cameras – the kind typically reserved for scientific or industrial purposes – Pauline Ballet, Ryan Pierse and Héctor Vivas have been crafting eerie pictures of athletes on the slopes of Cortina and in the rinks of Milan. The Olympians’ bodies are rendered as spectral yellows and reds, while the ice and snow around them appears either cyan or indigo.

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