Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

International Sports Broadcasting Brings 2023 World Para Athletics and Swimming Championships to the World Stage In Run Up to Paris 2024

01/08/2023

International Sports Broadcasting brings 2023 World Para Athletics and Swimming Championships to the world stage in run up to Paris 2024 By Heather McLean

Thursday, July 27, 2023 - 09:00

Print This Story

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 Pervill

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 Pervill

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 im
LINK: https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/international-sports-broadcas...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

27/07/2026

AES Educational Foundation Announces 2026/2027 Scholarship and Grant Recipients

The Audio Engineering Society Educational Foundation has named its scholarship and grant recipients for the 2026/2027 academic year. The awards support students...

27/07/2026

ESPN and MEAC Reach Multi-Year Media Rights Agreement Through 2030-31

ESPN and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) have signed a multi-year media rights agreement covering basketball championships and select football and ba...

27/07/2026

Yahoo Sports and Cameo Integrate Celebrity Video Bookings into Yahoo Fantasy

Yahoo Sports and Cameo have partnered to allow fantasy football users to book personalized celebrity videos directly within the Yahoo Fantasy app and website. T...

27/07/2026

Eutelsat to Receive $504 Million in FCC Upper C-Band Transition Payments

Eutelsat has welcomed the FCC's order establishing the regulatory framework for the transition of Upper C-band spectrum in the United States. Under the orde...

27/07/2026

ESPN Acquires U.S. and International Rights to International Dance League

ESPN and the International Dance League (IDL) have signed a global rights agreement for the 2026 season. Events will air bi-weekly on ESPN2 at 7 p.m. ET beginni...

27/07/2026

NBCUniversal and YouTube Announce Multi-Year Global Partnership

NBCUniversal and YouTube have signed a multi-year global partnership that includes bundling Peacock with YouTube Premium, extending NBCUniversal's distribut...

27/07/2026

Two Weeks Away: 2026 SVG Venues & Teams Summit at Miamis Kaseya Center To Reunite In-Stadium Production Community

Agenda includes presentations from the Miami Heat, Inter Miami, Florida Panthers...

27/07/2026

Behind The Mic: CBS Sports Bolsters College Football Analyst Team

Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, including new deals, departures, and assignments compiled from press releases and repo...

27/07/2026

PBR Goes Animated With BS: Bull Stories, Giving Its Bucking Bulls a Voice

Ten one-minute shorts will roll out across CBS, The CW, Paramount+ during the 2026 PBR Teams season PBR is officially moving into scripted animation. The Profe...

27/07/2026

Vochlea announce DubBox

New app turns vocal percussion into polished loops Vochlea, the company behind the voice-to-MIDI instrument Dubler 2, have just announced the launch of a ne...

27/07/2026

Sonora Cinematic launch Pure 12-String for Soundbox

Latest MPE-capable instrument completes Pure Trilogy line-up Sonora Cinematic have just released the third and final instalment in their series of acoustic ...

27/07/2026

fedDSP introduce Opto compressor plug-in

Emulates four varieties of optical compression The latest addition to the fedDSP line-up has just been announced, and packs four distinct optical compressor...

27/07/2026

Drawmer reveal the OC1 & FC1

Optical & FET compressors join 500-series line-up At our recent GearExpo UK show, we heard from Drawmer that they would soon be launching a pair of new 500-...

27/07/2026

T-Mobile Tops Ookla's Mobile Network Rankings

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/07/2026

Pebble to Feature Virtualization, Cloud-Based Playout Tech at IBC

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/07/2026

NBCU Telemundo Turns To Chyron PRIME 5 For World Cup Graphics

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

27/07/2026

Lightware Adds SNMPv3 Monitoring to Taurus Devices

Lightware announces SNMPv3-based monitoring support for selected Taurus devices, available from firmware v1.20.0. The update enables IT administrators and AV in...

27/07/2026

Mediagenix Showcases the Real-Time Media Enterprise at IB...

Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, will showcase its vision for the Real-Time...

27/07/2026

Official trailer: Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars in Sky Original supernatural thriller Possession

All episodes available Thursday 6 August on Sky and streaming service NOWMonday ...

27/07/2026

Seven paradoxes shaping the next era of media production - Episode 4

Why Confidence MattersIn this series, we explore the technologies, architectures and operational realities shaping modern media operations. Along the way, we ex...

27/07/2026

Apple brings AppleCare One to the UK, streamlining coverage - UPDATE - Posted on 27 July 2026

Apple today announced AppleCare One - a new way for customers to protect multipl...

27/07/2026

944,000 VIEWERS WATCH RT'S COVERAGE OF MAYO'S HISTORIC WIN, AFTER A 75 YEAR WAIT TO LIFT THE SAM MAGUIRE

Yesterday witnessed truly memorable scenes in Croke Park, bringing the curtain d...

27/07/2026

SES Statement On FCC Upper C-band Auction Decision

Luxembourg, July 27, 2026 - SES, a leading space solutions company, issued the following statement following the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approval...

27/07/2026

Industry Leaders Unite in Open Secure AI Alliance for AI Safety and Security

Open source software is a critical pillar of the global economy. It underpins cloud computing, financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, government...

26/07/2026

Audio Vivid: A New Destination for Immersive Audio

What is Audio Vivid? A New Destination for Immersive Audio Over the past several years, immersive audio has evolved from a niche production consideration into a...

26/07/2026

NVIDIA Harnesses Vera CPU to Speed Up Design of Next-Generation CPUs and GPUs

The complexity of modern chip design continues to grow as engineering teams work to develop increasingly sophisticated CPUs, GPUs and AI systems. To help meet t...

25/07/2026

Vochlea introduce DubBox

New app turns vocal percussion into polished loops Vochlea, the company behind the voice-to-MIDI instrument Dubler 2, have just announced the launch of a ne...

25/07/2026

Study: T-Mobile Remains Best Mobile and Fastest 5G Network

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

25/07/2026

Mark Bridges to Lead CableLabs

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

25/07/2026

Total YouTube Views for All FIFA World Cup Content Top 200 Billion

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

25/07/2026

Pebble To Address Future Of Media Operations At IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

25/07/2026

Paramount Agrees to Pause Warner Bros. Discovery Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

25/07/2026

Export FCP7 to XML Without Needing FCP7 Installed

Export FCP7 to XML Without Needing FCP7 Installed Dave Rice July 24, 2026 0 Comments I've created an open source tool that allows you to export FC...

25/07/2026

Documentary Sell Your House Edited with DaVinci Resolve Studio

Documentary Sell Your House Edited with DaVinci Resolve Studio Brie Clayton July 24, 2026 0 Comments Filmmakers post feature documentary from opposite...

25/07/2026

Time to Act: Bringing a New Opera to Life

Time to Act: Bringing a New Opera to Life Boston Conservatory at Berklee vocal arts students played a vital role in shaping the opera's creative developme...

25/07/2026

Beyond the Score

Beyond the Score For Dean of Music Kevin Haden, the boundless possibilities of classical music begin with process. July 24, 2026 By Kevin Haden Michelle ...

25/07/2026

Reading the Room

Reading the Room As music director of two major orchestras, conductor Jonathon Heyward aims to make the concert hall a space for everyone. July 24, 2026 By ...

25/07/2026

First look revealed for YAGA, a seductive mystery thriller coming to Sky and NOW this October

Saturday 25 July 2026 First look revealed for YAGA, a seductive mystery thrille...

24/07/2026

ESPN Adds New Production Features for NFL FLAG Championships

Referee hat cameras, player/coach mics, and virtual graphics will be deployed at the three-day event for the first time The NFL FLAG Championships return to ES...

24/07/2026

Qvest, Ateme and Scaleway Deliver Sovereign OTT Platforms for European Broadcasters

Qvest, Ateme, and Scaleway have partnered to offer broadcasters, media organizat...

24/07/2026

LTN Reaches 3,000 Satellite-to-IP Migrations as FCC Votes on C-Band Auction

LTN has completed satellite-to-IP migrations for more than 3,000 broadcaster, MVPD (Multi-Channel Video Programming Distributor), head-end, and content owner si...

24/07/2026

Chyron Releases Virtual Placement 8.1

Chyron has released Virtual Placement 8.1, an update to its live sports virtual graphics platform. The release adds workflow and graphics changes across chroma ...

24/07/2026

Riedel Deploys RefCam and Easy5G at International Soccer Match

Riedel's RefCam Live was used for the first time at an international soccer match during a friendly between the German men's national team and Ghana in ...

24/07/2026

USSI Global Offers Services for Next Phase of C-Band Spectrum Transition

USSI Global said it is prepared to help broadcasters, satellite network operators, and media organizations manage the next phase of C-band spectrum clearing, fo...

24/07/2026

Fubo Launches The Athletic Video Hub on CTV

FuboTV and The Athletic have launched The Athletic Video Hub on Fubo, bringing The Athletic's sports video content to connected TV (CTV) for the first time....