TWO TAKES ON TOKYO Alumnae reporting from the Olympic Games
Katie and the Paralympics Agitos outside the Olympic Stadium
Katie Smith (NHEHS 2013) is a journalist with BBC Sport. She works mainly in radio as a sports reporter on BBC World Service and Radio 5 Live. While working at the BBC Katie has covered a number of major events for radio including the Women’s World Cup, the Athletics World Championships and the Paralympics. What was your role for the BBC in Tokyo at the Paralympics? My role was to cover the athletics action at the Paralympics for radio, so for the majority of my time there 9
NHEHS OGA Newsletter
I was stationed in the magnificent National Stadium. Every day on BBC World Service radio we had an hour long show dedicated to live Paralympic action and rounding up the stories of the day. So my role within that was providing live race commentaries from inside the stadium as well as reporting on other things that had gone on that day, and interviewing some of the big global stars we had been looking out for. Due to the pandemic there was no crowd able to watch the racing live so I felt incredibly lucky to be one of the few who could and, therefore, had an important responsibility to bring that to life
for our listeners around the world. Radio commentary is all about painting pictures and bringing your audience with you in the dramatic sporting moments so I enjoyed the heightened responsibility of that within the pandemic context. I was also able to attend the brilliant Opening Ceremony and brought live coverage of that to BBC Radio 1, 2, 4, 5 and World Service. It was surreal but exciting to speak to so many different radio stations as the greatest show on earth began! Had you been to Japan before? How did you find it? I’d never been to Japan before and had been really excited to have an
