Viral moments of Paris 2024: Which Olympic heroes were crowned internet champions during the Games?

The Olympics is not just about gold medals, astonishing performances and breaking records. Paris 2024 saw countless unsuspecting individuals dragged into the limelight by eagle-eyed internet users and crowned the true heroes of the Olympic Games. Here we run through the biggest and best viral moments that took social media by storm across two and a half weeks of show-stopping sporting action.

The Olympics is where every athlete wants to be. Champions are crowned, records are broken and, more importantly, heroes are found in the most unexpected places.

Noah Lyles, Simone Biles, Leon Marchand, Armand Duplantis, Novak Djokovic and Keely Hodgkinson have all rightly and indelibly written their names into the history books this summer.

But there are scores of individuals who have discovered new-found fame on the biggest stage of them all, often without even looking for it.

From cold-blooded shooting poses to iconic surfing shots, the internet exercised its collective power to drag competitors from relative obscurity into the dazzling limelight.

Here we run through the moments and the heroes who went viral during Paris 2024

Tamberi cannot catch a break

Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi must have thought a higher power was playing games with him this summer.
Three years on from sharing the gold medal in Tokyo with Mutaz Barshim, Tamberi kicked off his title defence by losing his wedding ring in the River Seine during the opening ceremony.

A renal colic subsequently hospitalised the 32-year-old but did not stop him from qualifying for the final and rushing to the aid of stricken co-defending champion Barshim in a heart-warming reignition of the pair’s bromance.
“I managed to beat destiny once after my injury in 2016, but this time I think unfortunately it has won," posted Tamberi on social media ahead of the final.

Miraculously, the Italian pushed through the pain and competed for the gold medal on the penultimate day of action, but understandably could not reach the literal and figurative heights of Tokyo.

Bob the Cap Catcher

It was not just athletes who stole the hearts of Olympic enthusiasts this summer. Not every hero wears a cape; sometimes they don floral speedos.

An unnamed lifeguard, dubbed ‘Bob the Cap Catcher’, shot to internet fame when Team USA’s Emma Weber lost her swimming cap in a 100m breaststroke heat.

After expertly retrieving the lost headgear, ‘Bob’ gladly took the acclaim of Paris’ La Defense Arena before disappearing into the shadows, ready for his next aquatic recovery mission.

Where was Bob when Tamberi needed him?

Do you know The Muffin Man?

Even Henrik Christiansen could not have predicted the storm of likes, comments and followers that would sweep his way after he rated an Olympic Village triple-chocolate muffin 11 out of 10 on TikTok.

The Norwegian swimmer has seen his followers on the site rocket up from around 3000 to almost half a million after his inventive cocoa-related content went stratospheric.

Four of the 27-year-old’s videos have breached the 10 million views mark, with his most popular approaching 18 million by the end of his third Games.

“You never really think it’s going to happen,” Christiansen told PA. “You see other people blowing up like that and then you think it’s never going to happen to you, but here I am.

From pistols to Raygun

Few knew what to expect when breaking was added to the Olympics for the very first time, but the sport was bound to throw up a people’s champion or two on its debut.

And while Australian B-girl Rachael Gunn, self-styled as ‘Raygun’, did not manage to impress the judges in her three creative routines, she certainly made her mark on the Games.

Dressed in her nation’s green and yellow Olympic tracksuit, the university lecturer, who wrote her PhD thesis on the intersection of gender in Sydney’s breakdancing scene, unfortunately, failed to win a single point.

Gunn said post-event: "I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because how many chances do you get in a lifetime to do that on an international stage?”

Less is m-aura

Turkish shooter Yusuf Dikec became an overnight internet sensation for his casual approach to his sport, or so it seemed.

The 51-year-old became his nation’s oldest ever medallist in the mixed team 10m pistol event, securing silver along with his team-mate Sevval Ilayda Tarhan.

But it was his lack of professional equipment, sporting a pair of prescription glasses and inconspicuous earplugs, along with his nonchalant hand-in-the-pocket pose that got people raving.

Olympic gold medallists Duplantis, Nina Kennedy and Roje Stona, as well as footballers Irfan Kahveci and Steven Berghuis all paid tribute to the Turk in their celebrations.

Dikec later revealed that “storms were raging inside” while he competed for the gold, won in the final four shots by Serbia.

Walking in the air

More than 16,000km away from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina provided an early contender for a shot of the Games, eventually rivalled by Remco Evenepoel’s iconic road race celebration.

The Brazilian tamed a monster of a wave off the coast of Tahiti, putting both hands up in an attempt to do the judges’ work for them, before ejecting himself into the air.

Luckily, French photographer Jerome Brouillet was on hand to capture the moment as Medina appeared to stand on the clouds with one finger raised in triumph.

The three-time world champion immediately posted the picture to his Instagram, which was edging towards 10 million likes by the last day of the Games.

The City of Love

Love was in the air throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

At least seven athletes popped the big question over the fortnight, thankfully with a 100% yes rate.
One such lucky couple was French steeplechaser Alice Finot and her Spanish triathlete boyfriend Bruno Martinez Bargiela.

Despite not placing on the podium, Finot broke the European record at 8:58.67, just below her special limit for proposal.

"I told myself that if I ran under nine minutes, knowing that nine is my lucky number and that we've been together for nine years, then I would propose," Finot told reporters.

"I don't like doing things like everyone else. Since he hadn't done it yet, I told myself that maybe it was up to me to do it."