Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon

18th January 2008

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon

20th January 2008

 

RF Links for Marathons are Broadcast RF’s speciality.  Once again “Marathon Mania” came to Broadcast RF in the month of January with both the Dubai Marathon and the Mumbai Marathons run in the same weekend.

 

DUBAI

The Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon was covered live by a Cineflex camera system with Broadcast RF’s Low Delay Gigawave Helicopter Downlink.  The coverage from the RF downlink needed to be rock solid as Dubai TV decided against using chase bikes to cover the race.  There was no room for mistake, if the link from the aerial camera failed, there was simply no live pictures for the director to cut to.  The downlink performed seamlessly and 100% of the course was covered. 

 

The aerial footage was not only quality, but very robust.  The director had the confidence in the downlink from when the race started, until it ended.  The 3.5hr endurance of the helicopter was due to having two fuel tanks on board and allowed the helicopter to cover the build up of the marathon, the whole race (both womens and mens) and the tail enders that couldn’t quite keep up with the front runners.

 

The current marathon world record holder Haile Gebrselassie from Ethiopia won the mens race in style as normal with a very good time of 2hrs 4mins and 53secs.  The current mens world record is 2hrs 4mins and 26secs.

 

Birhane Adere won the womens race with an impressive 2hrs 22mins 42secs.

 

MUMBAI

Again the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon remained one of the top ten worlds marathons on its 5th anniversary with over 75,000 competitors.  The winner of the mens marathon was John Kelai from Kenya with a time of 2hrs 12mins and 22secs.  Mulu Seboka from Ethiopia won the womens race with a time of 2hrs 30mins and 3secs.

 

Three chase motorbikes were linked digitally via two relay helicopters and sent back to the main OB which was located at the top of the Air India building on Marine Drive.  The Air India building receive point is ideal as it is one of the tallest building in Mumbai.  An aerial camera ship was also linked back to the OB providing stunning shots from the air.

 

The camera shots covered the whole course with only line cameras as back up at the start and finish of the course.  Broadcast RF also provided full production and engineering talkback that worked over the full distance of the race providing talkback for helicopter pilots, bike riders, cameramen, presenters and of course the RF crew. 

 

This became the best coverage of this race ever.  Working closely beside Broadcast Solutions Asia and Procam Mediatel in India, this was simply a dream job for the producer and director.

 

Lalit Ajgaonkar, Director of Procam Mediatel in India stated the following after the race:

 

The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, 2008 was the 5th anniversary of a race that has been voted in the Top 10 marathons of the world! It was also the 5th successful live telecast of the event and arguably our best. A large part of it was due to some fantastic pictures from the RF linking systems provided by Broadcast RF. Many Thanks Guys!!