“We want to give people the feeling of flying”

Jonas Sloth Sandell himself has competed in ski jumping for both Norway and Sweden. For Sweden he took part in two Junior World Championships and the World Championships in Falun in 2015, but did not achieve any higher placings. But his commitment to sport led him to his current career.

– It all started in 2016 when I was injured and then started flying behind the others in the team in Trondheim. Since then there have been many years of training, many repetitions. “That led to me having to go to the Olympics and fly after a lot of the people I jumped with before,” says the 31-year-old.

The first time The fact that the Olympic Games were televised took place in Berlin in 1936, but with three cameras and the broadcast could only be seen in special rooms near the arena. In 1948, people in London were able to watch the Games from their living rooms, and the 1960 Rome Olympics received international coverage, although it took some time for much of the world to watch the competitions in real time.

Since then, the number of cameras has increased significantly and television images have improved, with athletes being able to be followed by cameras on cranes and from helicopters, among other things.

New to the ongoing Milan Cortina Olympics are recent drone images that have become a regular part of the images TV viewers see. Ships follow, among others, alpine skiers on slopes, biathletes on cross-country ski trails and tobogganers in the first curves.

– It’s like a circle dance. I fly up the slope and then wait for the jumper. “When the jumper sits on the pole, I lie behind him and follow him as smoothly as possible during the flight so that it looks like a jump, and then I fly up again,” says Jonas Sloth Sandell.

During the games There were hundreds of twists and turns.

How technically complicated are your drones compared to the ones I can buy in the store?

– All parts, including motor size, are made specifically for television production – so we can capture the best images. The most complicated part is what makes you see the jump on TV the second we fly – the transmission on the broadcast bus.

– So they are very complicated, but at the same time it is a general development in recent years that all the technology can now be packed into these small light vehicles in a way that was not possible before.

Image 1 of 3

Image 2 of 3

Image 3 of 3

The pilot Jonas Sloth Sandell Sits there with glasses during the races and just sees what the drone sees. Next to him, Jakob Holshagen is changing the drone’s battery, but he is also Sandell’s safety eye as he looks over the arena. Ansgar Tschimpke stands on a platform above, ensuring that the images get to the transmission bus.

– When I fly after the jumpers, I feel like I’m making a jump myself, and I want the TV viewers to feel that too.

Sandell believes his background as a ski jumper is crucial to ensuring that the images released to the world are good. But he has to learn.

– Every ski jumper has their own way of jumping. The Swede Frida Westman reaches a very high speed and flies further away from me, compared to, for example, a German who jumps up more and brakes much more in the air.

Jonas Sloth Sandell’s team is hired by OBS, the Olympic Games’ own broadcasting company, for his expertise in drone flying in the ski jumping environment. The same applies to other drone teams during the games.

What do you think drones have brought to television audiences?

– I think they gave a new perspective, the practitioner’s perspective, which was previously difficult to present. In alpine sports, for example, you can feel the speed and that it is a really hard sport. And when it comes to ski jumping, I want to give people the feeling of what it’s like to fly.