Three Is the Magic Number: How FilmNova and the PTO Covered The Collins Cup, Triathlon's Biggest Challenge

Three is the magic number: How FilmNova and the PTO covered The Collins Cup, triathlon's biggest challenge By Michael Burns

Monday, September 27, 2021 - 10:30

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The Collins Cup, the main event in the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) calendar, took place in Slovakia at the end of August and was shown live in over 100 countries. In this article, we take a look back at the massive effort, multiple challenges and military involvement behind broadcasting coverage of the event.

It's great when a plan comes together. It's even better when it works out far better than expected.

When we started, we felt that we might be streaming live, but we weren't sure about what the appetite would be for linear broadcast, says Martin Turner, executive producer of The Collins Cup coverage.

In the end, we broadcast live in over 100 territories for the whole event. It was quite extraordinary. The main coverage was 55 territories in Eurosport as well as Japan, America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, all the main countries that have an interest in triathlon. We're waiting for our full analysis of ratings, but the feedback from all the broadcasters has been fantastic.

amor n in Slovakia was the field of play for the Collins Cup, with 36 pro triathletes making up three teams of six men and six women, representing the USA, Europe and Internationals. Individual matches saw three athletes slug it out from each team, offering fans twelve separate races in all.

You've potentially got [to cover] 36 locations at any one time, and you've got to get to them all fairly seamlessly, says Turner.

When you cover golf, you've got stories happening on each of the 18 holes, you've got static cameras and moveable cameras but you've essentially got every hole covered and each separate story comes to you. Whereas at our event, we had to go to each match, we had to follow each athlete. The RF challenge was immense.

We had to get special dispensation from the Slovakian military government to allow us to use military frequencies.

Of course, this is television, not CCTV, so there's a story to tell too. From a narrative perspective, it's essentially one story: the USA versus Europe versus the Internationals, but it's cut up into 12 different events, says Turner.

It's also complicated by the fact that you don't only get points for finishing, you get points for finishing by winning a match by a certain amount or losing a match by a certain amount. You have to follow the story and know wherever you are at any one time, who's leading, what's going to change and explain the jeopardy. You're also telling individual stories, and keeping people up to date with the flow of the seven-hour event.

A state-of-the-art timing system was used for the first time, while specialist cameras enhanced the coverage and helped to explain who the athletes were.

It was a massive task we gave ourselves and we took on a lot of new challenges, says Turner. We tried a lot of new things and by and large, most of them worked.

Managing frequencies

The production company was FilmNova, with director Matthew Coliandris and programme producer Jim Bentley leading the world feed coverage.

Our background is in complicated OB, but when we saw the footprint we were faced with in amor n, that was a challenge above anything we've done before, says FilmNova managing director Phil Sibson.

When we took it to NEP, they said it was the most amount of RF frequencies they've ever had to request for a single job. We had to get special dispensation from the Slovakian military government to allow us to use military frequencies.

NEP The Netherlands deployed a 100-man crew, 12 motorbikes with each match group and a Quadbike to capture race finishes. A Wirecam, suspended by 20m towers with 16 tonnes of ballast acting as counterweights, provided coverage of transitions.

There were 30 cameras in total, including Steadicams, mobile and handheld RF cameras, Jibs, a Helitele and several specialist cameras, all linked by a fixed-wing relay plane. The graphics were supplied by AE Live.

It was a logistical headache for NEP in that when they couldn't cover a group by RF that they had to have a strong enough 4G signal to bring back pictures.

Although the production had a fixed-wing plane flying at altitude for RF signals, Sibson says this usually only covers around 10km, while the footprint for the whole course was about 30km.

The format of the competition was such that we knew that we would have athletes spread out over the extremities of the course, so we couldn't just position the plane over one part, says Sibson. So it was backed up by 4G as well.

Each of the motorbikes was equipped with both Vislink RF and Mobile Viewpoint WMT 4G encoders. From the off, we realised the only way that we could keep track of everyone on the course was by having a moto with every group, he adds. We needed those motos to stick with each group and move around with them.

It was a logistical headache for NEP in that when they couldn't cover a group by RF that they had to have a strong enough 4G signal to bring back pictures. There were also black spots on the course where there was no 4G coverage. NEP did an amazing job of making sure that when we didn't have 4G the RF was there and when we didn't have RF we had 4G.

So the fact that the signals were so solid throughout the whole seven hours is just staggering and a real achievement.

Weathering the storm

The main scanners, the edit and the highlight scanner and the replay scanner and the directing gallery were all on-site in expandable NEP trucks. The graphics operation for AE Live was in a fly case but that was on-site, says Turner.

The audio was challenging, as was the weat

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