Orienteering Live on Swiss Broadcasting TV for the First Time

Media Release / Press Release No 7

The Swiss TV enters uncharted territory by producing a live television transmission of the finals over the sprint distance of the OL WM 2003 in Rapperswil/Jona. Actually for the first time a television broadcasting company will lively transmit an orienteering race in our country.

The decision to broadcast this program was taken by the TV broadcasting company SF DRS because of the apparently grown interest in the professional sport of orienteering in Switzerland. The 20th World Orienteering Championships 2003 will take place during a particularly positive time in the own country. This endurance sport repeatedly made its point by the three men’s relay gold medals between 1991 and 1995. The two WOC gold medals in the Finnish city of Tampere two years ago by Simone Luder and Vroni König Salmi and the top rankings of the World Cup’s overall winner Simone Luder at the last two elections for the Swiss sportswoman of the year transformed the nature-bound sport of orienteering to a prime subject of interest to the sports-enthusiastic public as well as to the media.

The Swiss broadcasting company SF DRS will take these circumstances into account with expensive activities during August 5 – 9, 2003. On the opening day of the OL WM 2003, SF DRS will broadcast both the men’s and the women’s final over the sprint distance in full length between 4:25 p.m. and 6:40 p.m. For the first time the races will take place in an urban area. The organizers selected the Old Town of Rapperswil as racing area. Lightning-fast route decisions and highly developed running skills will decide upon the first WOC gold medals in the historic alleys of the Rose City at the upper part of the Lake of Zurich.

Quick decisions at a 5K speed
This relatively young orienteering discipline with a winner's time of only 12 minutes requires quick decisions and will result in small time differences on top of the classification. Moreover, for the first time the race outside of usually forested area will allow to directly watch the orienteers at work using their head and legs. For the TV producers the challenge remains: In contrast to road runners, orienteers will freely choose their routes between the controls through the narrow alleys of Rapperswil. This exceptional peculiarity of orienteering will be taken into account with ten cameras, such that the world’s best orienteering sprinters can be watched between the controls on different routes as often as possible.
Commentator Stefan Bürer will be supported by Christian Aebersold. Aebersold is a triple relay world champion and a WOC-fourth in 1991 over the short distance.

SF DRS is host broadcaster
As host broadcaster SF DRS will produce 15-minute summaries each from the WOC finals over the long distance in Winterthur (August 6), the middle distance in Trin (August 8) and form the relays in Jona (August 9). The summaries are offered to European television broadcast companies as well. On all race days the Swiss public will be informed in the edition of “Sport aktuell” at 10 p.m. on channel SF2 with reports on the races and with editorial contributions on the four decisions of the OL WM 2003.

Lukas Jenzer

Posted: 2003-05-20 13:23:16