Why wait for Brazil? You can see some of the most dazzling Olympic moments right now, at the Brooklyn Museum.
The show is “Who Shot Sports” — and no, it’s not a question, but a statement about the people who catch athletes in motion and, at times, at rest. As she did with 2009’s wildly popular “Who Shot Rock & Roll,” curator Gail Buckland wants to give credit where it’s due — in this case, to the 170 photographers who snapped these 230 images, the earliest being an 1843 portrait of a Scottish tennis player gazing (we learn) at an imaginary ball.
“I thought, ‘What’s bigger than rock ’n’ roll? Sports!’ ” Buckland says. The focus here isn’t on teams, but individuals: gods such as Lou Gehrig, Muhammad Ali, Sam Snead and Sonja Henie, as well as anonymous fencers, relay runners, base jumpers and matadors. In some cases, the lens turns on the fans themselves, like Martha Holmes’ giddy 1955 shot of the Brooklyn Dodgers faithful trucking down Flatbush Avenue after their boys won the World Series.
One of the photographers in this show, David Burnett, started covering the Olympics in 1984. These days, armed with a digital camera and a 1940s Speed Graphic — Weegee’s favorite! — he has a knack, Buckland says, for finding “exactly what the other photographers are not shooting.”
Case in point: Burnett’s shot of a diver leaning against a platform at a qualifying meet. “You see that amazingly sculpted body,” Burnett tells The Post, “and you think, ‘Maybe I won’t have that Snickers!’”
He says he’s shot several of Ali’s fights, though he missed the Thrilla in Manila (“What was I thinking?”). He does recall a 1976 bout against a Japanese wrestler who kept dropping to the mat and scissor-kicking Ali’s legs.
There aren’t any shots of that here. What we do have is Neil Leifer’s legendary ringside portrait of Ali glowering down at a toppled Sonny Liston, who dropped right in front of the young photographer’s lens.
Elsewhere in the show are a poignant shot of an 80-year-old Japanese runner, warily lining up for a 200-meter race; a blood-spattered matador, his neck bandaged above his bright red tie (red, bulls — what was he thinking?); and Ken Geiger’s photo of four ecstatic members of Nigeria’s women’s relay team, just after their 1992 win in Barcelona.
If you want to know what sheer joy looks like, this photo’s for you.
“Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present” runs through Jan. 8 at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway. Admission is pay what you wish. BrooklynMuseum.org
