I know, I’m a sports photographer myself. The photographers probably had more or less 12fps set in the camera, more would probably be overkill for a journalist portrait basically.

Even so, you can miss something like this if you start taking photos too late or too early. I had this situation many times when a footballer goes for a header and I get a photos of the ball coming towards him and going away from him, but not the moment he touches the ball. 12fps means a photo every 83ms and you can still miss it. Not to mention a bullet going a bit faster than a ball. Everything happens faster than we realise.

Not to mention shutter speed, how fast the shutter goes down, exposing the sensor. Too fast and you won’t get that streak, too slow and you’ll entirely miss it.