Figure skating-On-ice cameraman brings new Olympic angle

MILAN, Feb 19 : When figure skaters finish Olympic routines the most private seconds often come next - the deep breath after the music stops, quick look to the boards, a sense of relief or disappointment before facing their coaches in the kiss-and-cry area.

At the Milano Cortina Games, those moments are being captured in a way audiences have rarely seen - by a former competitive ice dancer skating alongside the athletes with a camera rig he designed himself.

Jordan Cowan, who grew up in Los Angeles and has competed for the U.S., works on the ice as a roaming camera operator, filming skaters from the end of routines through their exit, a gap in coverage he calls "unexplored territory" in broadcasts.

"It's special," Cowan told Reuters. "This is the first time it's been done and I couldn't have asked for a better experience."

COMBINING PASSIONS

Cowan said he began skating as a child partly because an ice rink felt exotic in Southern California. 

"It had air conditioning and my house didn't even have air conditioning," he said, smiling. 

Cowan approached the sport like an experiment, determined to understand how it worked. His training eventually took him to Michigan, where he pursued ice dance at an elite level before retiring.

After competition, he said he struggled to choose between long-time interests in film and science, until he realised he could combine them. 

His entry point came almost by accident during an ice show filmed for a PBS special in Sun Valley, where he recorded behind-the-scenes footage on a phone and a small gimbal.

Producers later used some of the shots in a documentary, impressed by the sensation of a camera "floating around the ice," he said.

Since then, Cowan has steadily evolved his equipment - moving from an