Sportaid: The Race Against TIme
On 25th May 1986 at 3.00 pm London time, "The Race Against Time" for Sportaid took place. 20 million people around the world took part with many races taking place at exactly the same time. A live worldwide programme of the event was produced and Kit Elliott was the technical co-ordinator for the project. He was in the NBC studios in New York as the pro gramme went out.
"This was my finest moment. We had planned it for weeks and were due to have live, simultaneous pictures from 13 countries around the world. When the pictures came in at last from Ougadougou in Africa, I practically collpased on the floor with relief. In those days, there were not the satellite facilities around that there are now. ITN had sent their portable uplink, which was still under test, down there and Intelsat had turned their satellite in it's orbit to bring the footprint onto Burkina Faso for us. The engineers had been having terrible problems with the heat and we were not sure we would get any pictures through at all. But, there they were and we had a full house......" Kit Elliott |
This clip is from a video of the event, subsequently released. The music was specially written for "The Race Against Time" by Vangelis. The voice over is the producer - Simon Dring.