35 miles of cable for 16 days of sports photos: How the Associated Press captured the Rio Olympics

 

 

As the sporting world closes the book on the Rio 2016 Olympics, the images captured during the 16 days of the Games of the XXXI Olympiad will live on. How were these images captured? We know that around 70% of photographers captured the Olympics with Canon gear and that zoom lenses were a popular optic of choice. We also know that Getty enlisted the help of underwater robots to capture iconic swimming images. And thanks to a new video from the Associated Press, we now know the technology they utilized in Rio, too.

With eight robots, dozens of remote cameras and 61 photographers in Brazil, the AP was well-prepared to capture the images seen around the world. Each day, they selected around 3,500 shots to distribute. The images were remotely captured and transferred via 35 miles of cable which took a month to install. After traveling via the networks, 16 photo editors sorted through the images to pick out the winners.

You can get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how the Associated Press captured the Rio Olympics in the video below.