'No blinking': Drones push Olympic broadcasting to new level

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO/LIVIGNO, Feb 14 : Drones have given television viewers worldwide an immersive and almost visceral sensation of the action at the Milano Cortina Olympics - enabling them to sense the athletes' speed, skill and movement close up, and taking the broadcasting to a new level.

FPV, or First Person View, drones have chased skiers down the slopes at 120 kph and hurtled along behind sliders plummeting through the ice canal in the luge and skeleton events, delivering dramatic new angles that bring audiences right up close to the action.

The 15 custom-built FPV drones in use weigh less than 250 grams but cost around 15,000 euros ($18,000) each and are equipped with a camera linked to special goggles worn by the pilot, allowing him or her to see exactly where he is flying.

"It's not like a car where you buy the whole thing. You buy a chassis from someone, a motor from someone else, and then you put together what fits your purpose best," Thomas De Koster, a 27-year-old Dutch engineer who built and pilots the Olympic drones, told Reuters in Cortina.

The biggest risk for the drone pilots is that the footage is filmed live, meaning there's no room for mistakes.

"The shots need to be really good the first time... We need to be very sharp," said Alejandro Petrakovsky, a 36-year-old drone operator from Argentina working in the team in Cortina.

Drones have been used at previous Games, including at the 2024 Paris Olympics. But this is the first time they have been so prevalent in the coverage, including in sliding sports where they fly just centimetres behind the competitors as they speed through the course.

Ahead of the Olympics, FPV drone pilots trained for weeks alongside the athletes, running the courses up to 60 times a day