Races challenge to more than skiers

Press, 13 August 1980, Page 14

Races challenge to more than skiers

The Europa F.I.S. skiing races at Coronet Peak, which can be seen on “Sporting Life” (One) tonight and Wednesday, was recorded in one of the most arduous outside broadcasts attempted in New Zealand. For the first time in New Zealand ski-ing was covered by electronic cameras. The task was complicated, but the spectacular coverage obtained justified the effort involved. The first serious problem faced by the Dunedin television crew was to get the 12-tonne, U-metre-long outside-broadcast van up the icy road to the top vehicle park at Coronet Peak. But with careful planning, and by making the attempt in mid-after-noon when the sun had melted most of the ice. the drive went smoothly. The same could not be said for a fully-laden tourist bus and an Army truck, both of which slid off the road in the treacherous conditions the following morning. Having got the van safely on site, the crew had to place the platforms for the cameras to cover the entire course from top to bottom. A helicopter provided the solution,

dropping the camera platforms, a generator, and other vital equipment on to the various positions in just 35 minutes — about the same time it took one member of the crew to struggle through 50 metres of waist-high snow with the generator’s battery after it needed recharging. In such conditions the helicopter was invaluable, but it was of little use in what was the most physi-cally-demanding task — the laying of nearly 300 metres of camera and communications cables. These had to be buried under 20 cm of snow to lessen the chances of overnight frost plunging the temperature below what the cables’ insulation would stand.

This being the first outside broadcast in such conditions, the technical crew was unsure of how the cables would cope with intense cold. Prior experiments in a Dunedin cool-store indicated that they would withstand minus 20 deg. Celsius before the insulation became brittle and in danger of cracking. Men of the Army’s S.A.S. unit provided valuable assistance to the 23-

strong television crew with their experience in working with helicopters and in providing the. initial two-way radio links while the camera positions were being set up. It took two full days in conditions that varied from mild sunshine to total white-out, before the setting-up was complete. Even then, two of the five cameras were not .providing pictures. One of the malfunctioning cameras was the one furthest away from the 0.8. van. Its cable, approximately 800 metres long, had to be checked section by section (the cables are in 50-metre lengths) and only when this had been laboriously done, was it discovered ■that the fault was actually in the connector attaching the cable to the camera itself. ' *• . ,

On the morning of the opening events all systems were going and thoroughly checked. The scene was set for spectacular coverage of some of the best ski-ing seen in New Zealand, with top international skiers from six countries — Japan Yugoslavia the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — providing the ex-. | citement.