Racing towards Budapest: ITN Sport looks ahead to the World Athletics Championships 2023

The brand new National Athletics Centre, which will host the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, is being built on the eastern bank of the Danube River

This year has been a busy one so far for World Athletics Productions, the joint venture between ITN and World Athletics, with much of its energy focussed on working on the 2022 World Athletics Championships held from 15 to 24 July 2022 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. The Championships were originally scheduled for August 2022, but were postponed by one year due to the pandemic.

This event was followed swiftly by the World U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia in August, and then the World Broadcaster Meeting where World Athletics Productions had to present all its production and logistics planning for next year’s World Athletics Championships, which is taking place between 19 to 27 August 2023 in Budapest.

The world broadcaster meeting took place in October this year, “so we had a very fast turnaround,” states Waddington. “We basically had three months to develop all our production plans to show to all of the world’s broadcasters in October, for a stadium that wasn’t yet built. So it’s been a very hectic year.

“Next year a lot of the focus is on Budapest, but the first event we have is the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, in February. And then there’s a new two day event towards the end of the year in Riga, which is the new World Road Running Championships.” The 2023 World Athletics Road Running Championships are scheduled to take place in Riga, Latvia, from 30 September to 1 October 2023.

Waddington continues: “But very much the focus for us is the World Athletics Championships in Budapest; the cycle for World Champs is normally 18 to 24 months. We’ve got less than 12 months to put together [the production], as I say, in a stadium that isn’t finished yet. It was more built the last time I saw it than the time before, but the track is not in yet. But it will be an iconic stadium; I think it’s fantastic, and Budapest is a brilliant city.”

He adds there are two key pressure points: one is the short turnaround time; and two, it’s likely to be the most popular championships amongst broadcasters that we’ve had for quite a few years since London [World Athletics Championships, London 2017] because of the time zone.”

“I think the headline is we’re going to rig a one kilometre-long wirecam down the main avenue. Andrassy Avenue runs south west from Heroes’ Square towards the Danube,” says ITN Sport’s Waddington

Spectacular wirecam

Coming up for Budapest 2023, ITN Sport, working under the guise of its joint venture with World Athletics – World Athletics Productions – is planning a spectacular wirecam as one of its leading innovations for the host broadcast.

Says Waddington: “I think the headline is we’re going to rig a one kilometre-long wirecam down Andrassy Avenue which runs south west from Heroes’ Square towards the Danube. The start and finish of the two marathons and three race walks will be in Heroes’ Square and the course for both the marathons and the race walks will go up and down Andrassy. The athletes will go down one carriageway and back up the other; both sets of races are on a loop so they do this repeatedly. Our wirecam will run approximately along the central reservation between the two carriageways offering overhead shots of athletes in both directions.

“It will be an engineering feat, particularly as part of the route has got a trolley tram system in it.”

One of the drivers for the creation of the epic wirecam, apart from it providing spectacular views of the events taking place below and the city itself, is sustainability. Waddington explains: “It is very important to us not to have helicopters on the outside races, for reasons of sustainability  apart from anything else. Helicopters are used on the outside races for two reasons: firstly, as a a signal relay and we don’t need to do that because the courses are in the city centre in amongst the historical buildings of Budapest, so there’s connectivity around the city; but secondly, we can do all the colour of aerial photography from drones and this wirecam.

“So I think it’s interesting; one of the things at our broadcaster meeting that the world’s broadcasters were most excited about was the fact that there aren’t any helicopters on the outside races, so they can fulfil their sustainability obligations as they go to their bosses to  apply for budget and so forth,” notes Waddington.

The National Athletics Centre in Budapest is still being built, but will be ready for the World Athletics Championships in August 2023

New athletics centre

The brand new National Athletics Centre, which will host the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, is being built on the eastern bank of the Danube River on the south side of the city. Currently a brown field, the site and the whole area will be regenerated and will become a public park with lots of green spaces, open to everyone.

The arena will have an initial capacity of 35,000 for the 2023 championships, before being reduced to 15,000.

While in Oregon all the athletics action was packed inside the running track in the small stadium, in Budapest areas such as the long jump and triple jump pits will be outside the track, in a more traditional athletics stadium design. The result is more space for the host broadcaster to use.

Comments Waddington: “Increasingly we’re using remote cameras, trying to cut down on the number of people [on the infield at any one time]. Trying to cut down the amount of clutter on the infield is really important to us.

“As you know, athletics is an incredibly busy sport. There’s a lot going on in the stadium at one time and it’s in danger of getting very, very cluttered. Whether it’s stacks of javelins or there’s athletes moving around, plus there’s medical tents, there’s timing and measuring equipment everywhere, there’s camera operators, photographers and so on. And it’s all in a very confined area. So the more we can do to cut down that traffic in both people and equipment, the better.

“So those types of innovations I think we’ll do more and more.”

Sounding good

Sound, says Waddington, is also becoming more of a focus for the ITN Sport team for its athletics events, and that it will be a significant feature of how World Athletics Productions delivers the World Athletics Championships. He states that it is a way to draw viewers in and give them that close to the action experience that they want.

“Sound is, we think, increasingly important for us,” he comments. “Actually if you ever stand track side at these events, you realise how incredibly noisy they are. That part of our mission is to get our viewers as close to the action as possible; get them the best seat in the house. So if they can hear the noise going on in a relay changeover box, for instance, then we should be bringing it to them.”

He continues: “Part of the ITN rebrand is about us looking beyond sport but getting up close and personal. We do way more coverage behind the scenes than has ever happened. We’ve got cameras in call rooms, they never had cameras in call rooms before. The athlete’s journey from the moment they get off the bus or even on the bus, and when they arrive at the venue, through their warm up, through the call rooms, to the multi-event disciplines.

“We’ve had cameras while athletes have been treated on massage tables and having to pull out of events, and you’re picking that up. It’s all part of the improved storytelling, which is of course very much part of ITN’s DNA,” he adds.

Concluding, Waddington states: “As an OB, athletics is the single most complicated single venue OB there is. So, you can talk about Champions League Final, the Super Bowl and this, that and the other; in the end there’s one set of match coverage. We’ve got three or four events  going on simultaneously, and we are running multiple live production galleries, all doing different things. It’s complicated!”