Gabby Logan, at 8:30 AM on Sunday, is gorgeous in a sports top and beanie. London Marathon in 1981 and since 1984 full coverage of the races.
Watched the 1980s grandstands on YouTube this weekend (and was gratefully surprised that people had the time and inclination to upload ancient television to the Internet), it's amazing how much continuity exists with the 2023 edition.
Television sports have changed a lot since then, but the BBC's broadcast of this unique offering — part top-level sport, part public interest talk show, part charity tin rattle — remains as familiar as its brass theme music, performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra theme from the 1966 Canadian western The Trap, starring Oliver Reed as a fur hunter.
The 1984 vintage, led by David Coleman, took part in both elite races and mass events, and began a rich tradition of interviewing breathless runners with shaky legs by Bob Wilson and his colleagues that continues today.
One difference is that Coleman wasn't on screen; our host this year was Gabby Logan, a very frequent screen presence and a real eye-catcher at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, gorgeous in a peach jogging top and beanie.
Today, Logan received a cake for her 50th birthday from a team of former Great British Bake Off contestants who participated in the event, one of many interactions with people who are not exactly celebrities, but are somewhat close to celebrities: radio di jays, minor TV presenters. , the guy from Mumford & Sons, Whatshisface of The Only Way Is Essex.
As for non-celebrities, the tone of the interview was a bit different in those days, in an era where the man on the street wasn't second nature to broadcast and project his own personal brand.
If in 1984 survey participants were shy and a little intimidated, in 2023 runners are glad to be able to tell about themselves and explain why they volunteer to go to 26-mile hell.
Charity has become mainstream, but it wasn’t Always: Nearly everyone reporters Jeanette Quakier, J.J. Chalmers and Steve Brown spoke to on Sunday had a story about an illness, a good reason, a person, etc. who was their inspiration.
While it is probably reasonable to say that the impact of each individual story is dulled by mere volume, it would be a cold and unkind heart that did not find much to admire and empathize with here.
Apart from the regrettable, but not unique flash of iconism on the part of the reporters («Nothing gets more iconic than being on Tower Bridge during the London Marathon»… «I'm on the iconic ship, the Cutty Sark» ), it went pretty well.
Runners cross Tower Bridge during the race. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA
Steve Krum and Paula Radcliffe have done a good job with the athletic side of it, although there is no voice in BBC Athletics that can match Brendan Foster. It was interesting to note how much Crum and Radcliffe pointed out that the women's winner, Sifan Hassan, was at the start of the race, urging her to stop running if she aggravated her injury. It is all the more surprising that she managed to win such a sensational victory.
Those who believe that the BBC has been taken over by the Walkery will find enough to cling to, given that Kwake has been placed on Limehouse's Meat Row, renamed Rainbow Row on the occasion of the «LGBTQIA celebration». communities".
There wasn't much of that in a 1984 report, when female runners were still being called girls, and fancy dress was certainly less sophisticated: an Eighties guy dressed up as a Frenchman with a comedic bow around his neck would certainly be a reversal. microaggression in 2023.
Another term you don't hear these days: fun runners.
What has certainly remained is the feeling that we are a special little nation, generous in our own way, loving to laugh and extremely prone to eccentricity.
There were countless beautiful outfits: cracker with cream for a mental health charity, the guy stood up like a VW, a man in a Chewbacca suit who looked like he could use a cold drink, various minions…
Jogging for fun By Marcin Nowak/London News Pictures Ltd
However, everyone kneels before the runner dressed as a duck, who addressed the people saying, «I duck. Quack quack.» I hope they got home all right.
You can be completely sure that the coverage of the London Marathon 2024 will be exactly the same, and it should work.
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