International Sports Broadcasting brings 2023 World Para Athletics and Swimming Championships to the world stage in run up to Paris 2024
International Sports Broadcasting (ISB) was the host broadcaster on behalf of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) for the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships, which took place from 8 to 17 July in Paris ©Florent Pervillé
Madrid-based International Sports Broadcasting (ISB) was the host broadcaster on behalf of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) for the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships, which took place from 8 to 17 July in Paris. This is set to be swiftly followed by the 2023 Para Swimming World Championships in Manchester which will begin with a splash on 31 July, running to 6 August, with ISB at the helm once again.
For the athletes, the Athletics and Swimming Championships represent a final hurdle to the Paralympics in Paris next year. ISB produced around eight hours of live coverage per day over the course of the World Para Athletics Championships, with ENG teams also producing additional content for the IPC’s use. There was also a daily 26 minute highlights show.
A similar output is expected for the upcoming Para Swimming World Championships, both of which have and will be produced in the same ethos from ISB; to showcase the events, tell the stories of the athletes, and increase viewership of the vast array of para sports.
Greg Breakell, director at ISB, notes that in his role he finds it important to not focus the cameras on the disabilities of the competitors, but on the way they are overcoming challenges on the track or pool in order to engage viewers at home and enable them to relate to what they are seeing on screen ©Florent Pervillé
Complex directing process
Para sport lends itself to a far more complex process for directors, according to Greg Breakell, director at ISB and for both these two events. On growing the viewership for para sports, Breakell says: “We’ve all spent a great deal of time in our careers working various para and disabled events and they’re special in themselves, but with the IPC, we’ve had discussions many times on many evenings, at many events, about how do we reach the world and let everybody see how special these athletes are and the stories that each individual has? And it’s always been a challenge.
“The goal has always been how do we bring the world’s eyeballs outside of the families and friends of these athletes, to be able to watch these compelling competitions and stories, but also identify with the athletes? One point is, they don’t want to be special. They’re humans, like any of the rest of us, but that happen to have a disability, whatever that may be. So it’s a real challenge in telling the story and getting that message across.”
“So it’s not just pictures, it’s not just sound, it’s not just compassion telling the stories, all the things we normally try to do, but it’s being very aware of the type of humans, individuals that we’re dealing with”
He notes that as a director, he finds it important to not focus the cameras on the disabilities of the competitors, but on the way they are overcoming challenges on the track or pool in order to engage viewers at home and enable them to relate to what they are seeing on screen.
Breakell explains: “In the back of my mind when I’m cutting pictures, I’m trying to make sure that the viewer is not uncomfortable with what they’re seeing. It’s no different than the philosophy in able-bodied sports when there’s an injury, how tight do you get? How much blood do you need to see? There’s that same uncomfortable level to it. For my job as a director, it’s not only about covering the competition, but to tell the stories.”
The ISB crew for the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships, which took place from 8 to 17 July in Paris
Getting the right angles
Breakell says this telling of stories in a para competition means he has to consider the equipment being used to capture the images more closely than for an able-bodied event. He says: “When it comes to equipment, even, what angles do we shoot this at? Our Agito buggy is low because we want to look into [the athletes’] faces. We all know the emotion is on the face, so we don’t want to be shooting everything from up high. So the buggy is low, our steadicams, the equipment is rigged to the low position. Most steadicam operators you’ll see in able-bodied sports, the lens is somewhere [up high]. We rig our lens down low so that we are looking into the eyes [of athletes in wheelchairs and the like]. It’s about respect for these people. We’re not looking down on them. We want to be on the same level. The philosophy of television is the same – you want to look into your eyes, we don’t want to look on top of your head – so that doesn’t change, but it does challenge us in some ways.”
He continues: “There’s no question that not only are you meeting the broadcast expectations of normal sports coverage, but there’s much more to be taken into consideration. You really need to be aware, with even things as simple as your camera operators being aware of prosthetics on the field of play; a steadicam operator normally, in able-bodied sports, pretty much moves within the guidelines of whatever you’ve discussed with the league or the committee or whatever. They know not only are they free to move, but the athlete will step out of the way if necessary. That’s not always the case in para sports.
“And then you have to take into consideration on top of that all the different classifications,” continues Breakell, on the overall complexities of working on a para production. “Some of the classifications for the hearing impaired, particularly. These are world-renowned athletes who are running or jumping or throwing at Olympic levels on some of these classifications. Some classifications clearly are not even close, but they have their own stories and their own records to break and set as any other sport. So from a broadcast point of view you really need to be prepared to not only cover highly elite athletes at elite levels and know all that it takes to do that, but also know how to gear down and still give the same level and respect of coverage to those who are not at the elite levels.”
“So it’s not just pictures, it’s not just sound, it’s not just compassion telling the stories, all the things we normally try to do, but it’s being very aware of the type of humans, individuals that we’re dealing with.”
The relationship and stories between athletes and their coaches at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships is remarkable ©Florent Pervillé
Layering stories
Breakell says the stories in para athletics and swimming layer upon each other in ways that are not as apparent in able bodied sports. “Our job is always to tell stories within the competition” says Breakell. “But you need to be more aware of special stories, not only leading into the competition, but what develops during the competition. There’s just a lot more to be taking into consideration in para sport.”
He continues: “Then there’s of course the stories of the relationships between athletes and coaches or the visually impaired athletes coach, [which is also about] communication between coaches and athletes. Most of these coaches, particularly in the running events, are internationally, sometimes even Olympic athletes themselves who are coaching with the para athletes. These are all stories within stories that don’t normally happen in [able bodied sports]. We’re still talking athletics, but it applies to swimming absolutely as well.
“And there’s also the challenge of classifications within one race or one event, which may have two or three,” Breakell goes on. “So now it’s not just the person who crosses the finish line, there’s actually going to be two or three winners within that race. And let’s not fool ourselves here. I mean, we’ve got a really nice production plan with more than ample equipment to do a very nice job, but in the end, this is not your able-bodied event where you have a huge budget and so you really need to start making some decisions.
“I always keep in the back of my mind, every one of those people has a mother and father and family watching; it’s really easy to say, “oh yeah, there’s our first, there’s our second, don’t worry about the third place finish”. But there’s still a story and there’s still someone watching and a family.”
Enhancing the broadcast
The last World Para Athletics Championships that ISB worked was Dubai 2019, which was the last until this year’s event. Comments David Taunton, head of production at ISB: “We had the chance to use a remote buggy for the first time in Dubai at that time [and now we are bringing] those elements back. We have bought in a little bit more specialist equipment with more robotic cameras to be able to cover our field events more precisely. Also, on the broadcast side, what have added is on the services side for broadcasters and for the IPC. We’ve implementing SRT distribution, which really gives access to more broadcasters [as it lowers the cost of entry to get the content on TV for them]. We tested this out in the World Games, and we’re confident of the system.
“We’ve also adding near-live clipping as a service for broadcasters. We’re confident, given the scale of the project, the budget and the reach, that what we’ve decided is to add more focus on those services and to try to facilitate how to get these pictures out and these messages out for broadcasters around the globe. That was the big new one for us this time around for Paris.”
On the production workflow for the athletics, everything was based on the ground in Paris bar the medal ceremonies that were held outside of the stadium. Those were sent back to the ISB offices in Madrid to be cut and offered out to broadcasters. Additionally, all the events were also provided as clips for social media distribution from Madrid.
Athletes compete at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships ©Florent Pervillé
Making a splash
Next up for ISB is the Para Swimming World Championships in Manchester. Taunton says: “This Championships is based on the same philosophy as the athletics. We do strive for the underwater shots because you actually get to see the athletes’ strength there. But I’d say that our forte [for this Championship] is the personnel we’re using. We have the same camera ops for specific positions that we’re bringing back as per previous years. And I think that’s the difference, that we’ve been using the same team.
“We can build on, event to event, the understanding that we have not only of the sport and the athletes, but the federations – in this case World Para Swimming (WPS) – and each year we have been able to get closer each time and more intimate because there is already a trust. The athletes get to know us, the judges trust us, and that is a plus point that we feel we bring to the event,” notes Taunton.
That trust, “certainly makes the director’s job easier,” says Breakell. Again, however, there are added complications when covering a pool-based race in a para event which includes different classifications and therefore different races simultaneously. He notes: “When you have different classifications in a race, not only do you have the winner the of the [race with] more able bodied people celebrating, but they still have to stand at the end of the pool there and wait for the person who’s got four or five more lengths left to go in a different classification, and they’re actually a lead swimmer in their class, so it’s still a big race. So there’s that challenge. One thing you’ll notice with disabled athletes though is they support each other much more than able bodied athletes, particularly when there’s different classifications within a race.”
Again, the coach-athlete relationship in the pool is another that has to be told, according to Breakell. He explains: “The coaching of the visually impaired is wonderful, tapping swimmers on the head to let them know when the wall has come, the verbal communication with coaches walking on the side of the pool. We’ll run replays. Even, if it was an able-bodied race and your swimmer touched the lane marker, that would be a replay because it’s taking away time, it’s slowing them down, it means they’re offline, but in reality for the visually impaired, they’re actually doing that on purpose to figure out where the hell they are in the pool. So all these things have to be captured.”
Elevating para sport
Taunton adds: “This is about uncovering these sports [for viewers], but I will say it also about giving broadcasters a product that they will find familiar, that they’ll be happy to put on TV. And it varies from country to country, but you put the word “para” before sport and people go, “oh well, it’s a second tier event”, or at least that’s the preconception that people might have.
“It’s our job to elevate the sport as much as possible, and elevate the standards of it for distribution as well,” continues Taunton. “I say, “listen, broadcasters, you have a great product here, you’re got to get from it what you would expect from any other event”. Because we do help IPC as well with distribution for this. That’s why we’ve brought in tools like SRT to lower those costs to entice more broadcasters. Definitely this time around it does help that Paris 2024 is next year and there is a little more traction to this event because of it. So yeah, hopefully we’ll get more eyeballs on it this year and keep on doing that for years to come.”
Breakell concludes: “Not only is it our job to cover these sports, but it’s all our jobs to make able-bodied humans at least – if nothing else – have more respect for [para athletics and swimming], and hopefully get a few more eyeballs on it.”