“All big stars went through them”: Rhona McLeod on covering the Youth Olympic Games

The Youth Olympic Games may not have the global spotlight of the senior Olympics, but reporting on them means capturing more than just medals. There, journalists tell the stories of tomorrow’s stars, today.

“They [the young athletes] could be the stars of the future”, says Scottish broadcaster Rhona McLeod. “All big stars went through them, you will be seeing a future Noah Lyles or Simone Biles.”

Rhona McLeod is a Scottish sports broadcaster and freelancer, as well as former international athlete and member of Scottish Athletics. After working for more than 20 years at BBC Scotland she decided to take the next step in her career and work as a freelancer.

Photo by Rhona McLeod

“I really didn’t know much about Olympic broadcasting, but I knew it was a potential source of employment. That was in 2019, and the first Olympic event that was coming up was the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne.

“It just kind of happened almost by accident that it was a Winter Youth Olympics, and so I went along with it. It was the first time that I had interviewed kids, because in mainstream media working for the BBC, you don’t really cover kids’ sporting events.

“The age group was 15 to 18 years, and my own kids at that time were in that age group, so it was very natural for me to interview the athletes, to be genuinely excited for their aspirations and to have a real feel for the journey that they were on.”

When covering any sporting event, especially an important one like the Olympics, everyone’s advice is to do as much research as possible on the athletes and the competition. When covering the Youth Olympics, however, little to no data is available online on the young rising stars.

“It’s really just about getting to know your workspace as much as possible, making contacts with the people that you might need, and always doing it in a smiling and friendly and welcoming way,” McLeod explains.

“Introduce yourself. Find out the people who can help you with the particulars of the sport. Get to know the media people from each of those countries, just be honest with them and say, ‘Look, I’m a really experienced journalist but I’ve never covered your sport before and I would like to do it well.’”

Photo by Rhona McLeod

If sourcing information is already a difficult challenge for most journalists at the Youth Olympics, dealing with young athletes who are walking on the international stage for the first time is not easier in any way.

“They’ve never really done the media before,” she continues.

“You have to approach that in a slightly different way with your questions and you have to almost coach the answers a bit more. We’re not telling them what to say, but maybe how to say it, or we explain a bit more beforehand.

“If you’re doing a broadcast, say like ‘I’m going to ask you the questions and I’m going to have the microphone here’, ‘don’t answer till I get the microphone to you’, ‘turn and look at me’ or ‘make sure you maintain eye contact.‘

“There’s a bit of coaching from that point of view, just to try and put them at ease of their whole situation.”

Photo by Rhona McLeod

In addition to the inexperience of the young athletes, when going to international youth competition one must remember that not all kids at that age speak or understand fluent English.

“Most kids from places like Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan or China and Japan, they don’t speak English and I didn’t speak their language, so Google Translate is your greatest friend.

“The way that I did it was that I would have about three questions, which could be applied to a lot of different people, and I would have it on my phone and I would hold the phone up there beside my eyes so that they could read the question in their own language.

“I just had to trust that they were giving good answers, because sometimes you won’t have a translator. Even when you do, though, it’s not ideal.

“If I give a ten second question and they give a three second answer, I know that I’m not getting much back. Or sometimes the athlete will give a three second answer and the translator gives you a 32 second answer, they’re just saying what they want to say now. It’s definitely a compromise.”

Photo by Rhona McLeod

Despite the difficulties that may arise, covering the Youth Olympics means putting the spotlight not on the big names but on the rising stars, those who will one day make the headlines of sports news.

“I was an athlete myself,” McLeod concludes, “and I went through all that age group. I have a real understanding and appreciation for that level.

“It’s always lovely if somebody wins a medal, when they just had no idea they were at that level. You can see the excitement for having done that, and then the realisation that this puts them on a platform for going forward into the next stage of their career.

“They all want to be senior athletes. They all want to make it through to the big stage. It was lovely to see that journey and that realisation that they could be a star of the future.”