Photographer Casey Sims shot for 19 days straight at the Paris Olympics, surviving on red bull, vibes and bad coffee in the media room. She was working with the Oceania National Olympics Committees on an assignment to capture athletes from the Pacific Islands across multiple sports, including athletics.

In this conversation, we cover Casey’s most memorable shots, how to stand your ground as a female photographer, and what makes an image go viral. We talk about how the Olympics experience compared with the World Athletics Championships in Budapest last year, and all the learnings along the way.

Casey Sims started shooting track and field several years ago and is a self-proclaimed athletics nerd deeply involved in the sport in her hometown Brisbane, Australia. Since such beginnings, she’s shot at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Oceania Athletics Championships in Fiji and the Paris Olympics. She won the Women’s Sport Australia Photo Action Amateur Award in 2020 and 2021, and was a finalist for the Canon Clique Awards in 2022.

Casey currently divides her time as a Media and Communications Officer with the Oceania Athletics Association and as a lecturer in exercise science at Queensland University of Technology.