What are the criteria for choosing the best sporting images of the year? Should narrative and composition be given equal weight? We need both to create a truly powerful image, right?
Well, yes… but that isn’t the whole picture. The fact is that a superior composition can lose out to a similar but fractionally inferior image captured in, say, a higher stakes game – a hard-fought final perhaps. The event itself elbows aside aesthetic considerations and pushes the inferior photograph into the category of a “Decisive Moment”.
Or another conundrum: in pursuit of excellence, it’s tempting to want to capture only the art and poetry of sporting endeavour. But what about the chaos? What about the sometimes unlovely hubris of victors or the raw dejection of losers? For that matter, should our gaze be directed only at the participants or do those who watch from the crowd also make the cut?
And the most important question: am I just getting my excuses in early? Perhaps, but one of the joys of sport is that it allows us to dress up flimsy opinion as ironclad fact and then loudly defend it against all comers. It’s also at its best when its imperfections are on display.
With that in mind, prepare to cheer on/roundly boo my perfectly imperfect selection of 2025’s greatest sporting photographs.
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Photograph by Marko Djurica/Reuters
Luck or good judgment?
No idea – but the result is a wonderfully surreal take on sports photography, as Switzerland’s Jean-David Duval is captured at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore on 25 July.
Photograph by Andy Hall/The Observer
Exposed in defeat
Our very own Andy Hall captured Emma Raducanu as she lost in straight sets to world No1 Aryna Sabalenka at Wimbledon. Ever had one of those dreams where you’ve been caught out somehow and every eye, be it critical or sympathetic, is on you? Welcome to the world of the elite sportsperson.
Photograph by Mark Sutton, Formula 1/Getty Images
In the zone
Williams driver Carlos Sainz psyches himself (and us) up ahead of the F1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 4 July. Does he even see the camera?
Photograph by Pawel Kopczynski/POOL/AFP
Bird’s-eye view
Remote technology helped sports photographers put viewers at the heart of the action – like here, as the peerless Mondo Duplantis competes in the men’s pole vault final during the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on 15 September.
Photograph by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Champagne Super Donald
Captain Luke Donald of Team Europe brandishes the Ryder Cup trophy as he is doused in champagne by Rory McIlroy after defeating Team USA.
Photograph by Hannah McKay/Reuters
In the thick of it
Gabriel Martinelli puts Arsenal's first goal past Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martínez back in January. You almost cleared it off the line, didn’t you?
Photograph by Brian Snyder/Reuters
Relief
Rory McIlroy on the 18th green after winning the Masters at the first play-off hole to complete a career grand slam. Less celebration, more relief.
Photograph by Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images
Anticipation
Scott McTominay of Scotland is about to make it 1-0 during the World Cup 2026 qualifier match between Scotland and Denmark. The moment of contact was the choice of many picture editors, but I prefer the possibility, anticipation and hope of this moment a fraction of a second earlier.
Photograph by Gary Calton/The Observer
Tech revolution
A more recent technological aid, the drone, allowed The Observer’s Gary Calton to capture this stunning image of GB’s beach rowing team crash through the waves at their training location at Littlehaven beach, South Shields, ahead of the sport’s inclusion at the 2028 Olympics.
Photograph by Joe Giddens/PA Wire
One for the cameras
Smile please. Leicester Tigers’s Adam Radwan scores his side’s second try during the Gallagher Premiership semi-final match against Sale.
Photograph by Thibaud Moritz/AFP via Getty Images
Smoke and Mirrors
Paris Saint-Germain supporters celebrate their team’s second goal in the Champions League final match against Inter Milan.
Photograph by Martin Meissner/AP Photo
Get in
A second-look photograph if ever I saw one. First, we see the ball hit the back of the net – then the jubilant figure of Lucy Bronze becomes apparent, as she reacts to scoring a penalty in the quarter-final shootout against Sweden in the Women’s Euro 2025.
Photograph by Michael Steele/Getty Images
What a scream
Silver medallist Amy Hunt of Great Britain reacts with joy, surprise (and probably relief) as she looks to the screen after competing in the women’s 200 metres final at the World Athletics Championships. What makes this photograph is the juxtaposing haunched stances of her fellow competitors.
Photograph by Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
Poise
Coco Gauff tosses the ball as tenderly as releasing a butterfly, as she serves to Aryna Sabalenka during the women's singles final at the French Open. It’s the kind of picture that shows how a single captured moment forces us to view an action in a very different way compared with moving images.
Photograph by Luca Bettini/AFP via Getty Images
Grit and determination
Britain’s Simon Yates cycles up the Colle delle Finestre during the 20th stage of the 108th Giro d'Italia and into the leader’s pink jersey. It was the stage where he had previously lost blown the race seven years before. He wasn’t about to do so again…
Photograph by Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images
Outnumbered
So here’s the chaos I mentioned: Maud Muir as a scrum collapses during the Women's Rugby World Cup final between Canada and England.
Photograph by Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images
Heartbreaking
Diogo Jota lifts the Premier League trophy with his Liverpool teammates on 25 May. Five and a half weeks later he was dead, killed alongside his brother, André, in a car crash. In the short time between these two events he also lifted the Uefa Nations League trophy with Portugal and married his childhood sweetheart. The fact that he was having the best time of his short life adds a powerful poignancy.
Photograph by McKlein Photography/LAT Images
Flag waving
A compositional masterclass from McKlein Photography. Diagonals, triangles, depth and action – it’s all going on as Adrien Fourmaux of France competes in the FIA World Rally Championship in Matosinhos, Portugal.
Photograph by Liam McBurney/PA Wire
Mirror images
Silhouettes and reflections lend this photograph a wonderful painterly quality of runners and riders in action at Laytown Races in County Meath, Ireland.
Photograph by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
Side-eye shot
Jofra Archer hits another big shot on his way to 38 in a face-saving 10th-wicket partnership of 70 with Joe Root at the Gabba in the second Ashes Test. He plays a fine shot but it’s his expression that makes this stand out. The supreme ease, that confidence bordering on insouciance with which he’s met the delivery, is a joy to behold… unless you’re Australian, of course.