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Beyond the din of a sporting competition—whether it’s a FIFA World Cup qualifier, an Olympic 100-meter sprint, or a junior basketball game on a suburban pitch—lies an intricate web of backstories that have spawned the burgeoning genre of sports journalism. quite separate from sports reporting.
Those who specialize in it use the prism of sport to explain the complexities of the world we live in, with its geopolitical, cultural and social divides.
This week in Doha, as the Socceroos wrote the next chapter in their own individual and collective history, a group of sportswriters from every continent gathered in the same city to have their work recognized at the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) awards gala.
The photographic portfolios, research, color work and television documentaries revealed an incredible depth of excellent storytelling that often goes unnoticed.
Thus began the gold medal-winning Best Color Piece by Wufei Yu (China) and Will Ford (USA), published in Runner’s World.
It’s a powerful account from those who survived the tragedy of China’s 2021 Yellow River Stone Forest ultramarathon.
Experience counted for nothing as an unusual cold snap left runners stuck between checkpoints, unable to go forward, too cold to go back. Only one of the group of six survived.
The story asks how it all went so wrong and speaks to survivors, some of whom are still grappling with what they experienced. This isn’t just coverage of a sporting event, this is journalism at its finest.
“I think sports journalism is often associated only with celebrity and entertainment culture,” Ford told The Ticket.
“But there’s so much more humanity to highlight through your lens — especially in a social, political, and anthropological sense.”
In the far west of Ghana, on the banks of the Pra River, lies a small town that journalist Francis Hena describes as “more inspirational footnotes than headlines”.
He won the Best Broadcaster Young Reporters category with his story of hope emerging from a village of despair.
Boys, children of subsistence farmers and fishermen, dream of an alternate universe in which they are great footballers playing on a world stage: they play for the Pra Babies Football Club, where a young coach struggles to teach the boys and tame them nourish and equip them to instill in them a sense of pride in who they are and where life could take them.
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“It’s very difficult,” coach Roland Fiifi Ackon tells Hema. “You don’t get any support from anyone.”
Hema focused on Pra Babies but there are such teams all over Ghana. This is where the journey began for many of the hundreds of Ghanaians who now play in every major league in the world.
“Young footballers in Ghana and Africa are struggling,” said Hema.
“I hope my story on Pra Babies will change the narrative and key stakeholders will give footballers the attention they need at grassroots level to help them reach their full potential.
“What drives me as a sportswriter is seeing how my stories impact the lives of those around me and society at large.”
French journalist Matthieu Darnon won the Video Documentary Award for his confrontational portrayal of the 28 seconds in the life of former F1 driver Romain Grosjean when he was literally on fire.
The driver hit a metal barrier at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix and split his car in half when it exploded in a fireball.
His wife was watching live TV and thought she was widowed. Commentating on the race, his best friend tried to maintain control and coherence as his mind was out of control and flooded with emotions as the devastating scene played out in front of him.
Grosjean himself said he will never be the same as his car then, his life is now divided in two – before and after November 29, 2020.
Darnon, the documentary maker, said journalists who do what he does are in a privileged position.
“As sportswriters, we have a great opportunity to follow people who are testing human limits, be it mental or physical, putting them in situations normal people can’t even imagine,” he said.
“Actually, it’s pretty rare that your husband nearly dies in flames live on TV.
“That’s what I tried to tell in this documentary about Romain’s experiences in his car…what his family and friends endured during those frightening seconds of his accident.”
I have neither the time nor the capacity to detail here the merits of each awardee, but I wish I could. This little snapshot brings context to what it means to be a sportswriter.
There were stories of wars in Afghanistan and Ukraine, of Paralympians fleeing to Tokyo to compete after the Taliban took over their country, knowing they would likely never return home or see their families again.
There is a story from the 1980’s Algerian men’s soccer team who didn’t know they had been doped by their Russian coach until some of them later in life gave birth to children, all of whom were mentally retarded.
And there’s one about a baseball team that was formed in Fukushima to try to heal people after a meltdown and tsunami left them broken and bereft.
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At the start of the awards ceremony, which took place in the heart of Doha’s Khalifa International Stadium – one of the venues for the FIFA Men’s World Cup 2022 in December – AIPS President Gianno Merlo paid tribute to two journalists who, to him, embody today what the awards ceremony is in its fourth year, are all round.
Shireen Abu Akleh was a Palestinian-American journalist who worked for Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel before she was shot dead in May this year while covering an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Vladislav Dunaienko, AIPS Young Reporter in 2019, is now an elderly, wise Ukrainian who has gone from covering football matches in his country to battling the invading Russian military in a matter of months.
“I created these awards to give meaning to what we do,” Merlo said.
“Because journalists are usually very humble; in a way, humble can sometimes mean stupid.
“Not promoting the profession is crazy. We encourage everyone else (in sport) but not ourselves when we do good.
“I can tell you – from reading and watching and listening (among all the nominations) I’ve learned a lot of things, some things I couldn’t have imagined and that’s the most important thing… it can be life changing.”
“It is for this reason that I wanted to recognize Ukraine…because this young man (Vlad Dunaienko) is truly one of millions of young men and others whose sanity has been shattered by these events.
“In three months he became a different man, a man with maybe less hope than before, with less enthusiasm. He will always see the dark side of the moon.
“Those are the real stories, this is real life… human rights, match-fixing, corruption, the issues we face every day that we need to talk about.
“I was there for the first time in 1969 to cover the European Athletics Championships in Athens… the then General Secretary of AIPS was in charge of accreditation there.
“This guy gave me my first accreditation and it changed my life. Because of this, I hope to change someone else’s life.”
Sports journalism tells us more than just sports, it shows who we are, what drives us, shows our strengths and our weaknesses.
The work, recognized this week in Doha, was the culmination of more than 1,700 submissions from over 130 countries – including not a single match report or result, proof that sports journalism has come of age.
Tracey Holmes won first place in the audio category of the 2021 AIPS Sport Media Awards for her episode of The Ticket entitled Afghanistan Resuce Mission, Australia Steps Up.