Sport

If photography is all about the moment, sports put that to the test more than any other subject. With its emphasis on posing, plus some flamboyant lifts and throws, synchronised swimming makes a beautiful subject for photography. You need to make sure your shutter speed is fast enough to capture the action, and the photographer's instinct to capture exactly the right position - as is the case here. The restricted colour palette – red and skin tones – against a black background makes this a striking image.

Where's the sport? A very tiny lone golfer in the bottom third of the scene. So many photos of golf are closeups of golfers, flying sand and soaring balls, yet the course is as much a participant in the game as the players and that's what this photo makes the most of. Turning the photo to monochrome is a clever touch; few sports are as colourful as golf, but by removing the cream sand, green grass and (probably) lurid golf clothes, what's left is the structure of the course, and the challenge the golfer is facing.

How the participant in the wheelchair managed to avoid getting pelted with powder paint during the Color Run is anybody's guess, but against the clouds of orange, their sunlit shins and the black of the chair really stand out. The other participants are similarly limited in colour, and while the runner nearest the camera could have dominated the frame, instead a good dusting of orange has ensured they appear less prominent. The flying clouds and clods of paint, and pounding feet give a sense of motion, and clever cropping ensures the action, not the emotion, is what you see.

The judges loved this perfect silhouette of orienteer Jess Tullie. There's the slightest of gaps under her leading foot, so she doesn't merge into the ground. Had one of her feet been squarely on the ground, joining her to the earth, the sense of motion would have been greatly reduced. That ground, by the way, is really crisp and sharp – you can make out individual plants along the horizon – because the photographer deliberately exposed for the sky, ensuring it didn't blow out and also affect the edges of the silhouette.

The pitch may be flooded – the corner flag indicates that somewhere under the muddy water there should be proper markings – but these two young men aren't going to let that spoil their game. The water makes a superb neutral, yet textured, background against which the men's colourful strips, white ball, and that corner flag all stand out, reducing the scene to the essentials of football, while the splashes and spray around the players shows motion and speed, frozen by a very fast shutter speed.

Cycling was one of the most popular subjects in this competition and this photograph stood out for a number of reasons. First, there's the way the four cyclists line up within the frame, taking up most of it but still allowing you to see some of the context. A very wide f/2.8 aperture blurs out not just the distant spectators but the trailing riders too – and the fact the photographer has got the lead cyclist sharp shows considerable skill in focussing and timing the shot.

All the burning passion of the football fan is captured here in this image of Legia Warszawa fans at a match. It can be difficult to convey the sense of excitement felt by a large crowd - the further you zoom out, the less the expression on individual photos can be seen - but here the billowing clouds of smoke act as a visual substitute for the atmosphere within the ground. The shot's beautifully framed, with silhouetted supporters at the centre of the frame, and more spectators clearly visible against the night's darkness beyond them, and remarkably sharp given the shooting conditions.

You don't need scattering earth or spraying water to tell you this skater is in motion, the shape of his body and the curve of the skatepark's bowl let you know he's hit his peak and will be descending pretty shortly. The bright sunlight enabled to the photographer to capture a perfectly sharp image despite the skater's speed. Clever post-production work has added to the gritty feel of the photo – these techniques can detract from many images, but here it's the perfect complement to the concrete of the skatepark.

What the judges liked about this image was the way the physical runner is almost incidental – what really grabs your attention is the track itself and the distorted shadow of the runner, which becomes almost a spirit of the track. The strange distortion of the shadow, with a bizarrely elongated arm, doesn't increase the feeling of speed, but the unusual curves draw you across the picture one way, while the lines of the track pull you another, making this a dynamic image nonetheless.