Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
from Photographers Blog:
The Olympic Games: Much more than the stars
By Denis Balibouse
"The important thing in life is not victory, but the fight; the main thing is not to have won, but to have fought well." Baron Pierre de Coubertin
I have always been addicted to sports, any kind of sports. My father was a sports reporter in Switzerland. As a child I would follow him onto soccer pitches, motocross grounds and ice hockey rinks. Whenever I travel somewhere I try to follow the local sports. I even attempted to understand cricket (I'm married to an Australian), although I have to confess, I have so far failed with this one.
Now that the Euro Championship is over, my attention will turn to the “road slaves” of the Tour de France, which, in my eyes, is the toughest sporting event in the world. And then there's the Olympic Games in London, regarded by many athletes as the pinnacle of physical prowess.
As part of our pre-Games coverage, editors have asked us to photograph some athletes during their preparation for the event. Despite plenty of assignments in Geneva, where I am based, I suggested going to the Swiss Rowing Center in Sarnen, central Switzerland. The backdrop of the Swiss Rowing Center is postcard-perfect. Snow-covered mountain peaks ring Sarnen Lake, so I knew the story would not lack for visual appeal.
Greg Rusedski blog – I can’t wait for second week of Wimbledon
The first week of the Wimbledon Championships, on the men’s side, ended up being one of the most exciting of all time.
There were major upsets, epic matches, and conspiracy theories. The biggest upset in over a decade happened in the second round of the men’s singles when Rafa Nadal, many people’s pick for the championship, lost to the unheralded Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic.
Quick quizzes reveal Spain players’ secrets
If you wanted to find out some intimate details about the Spain team competing at Euro 2012 you could do a lot worse than read the series of quickfire interviews published over the past few weeks in El Pais daily.
Bombarded with questions like how much do you spend each month on petrol, who is Lech Walesa, how often does coach Vicente del Bosque trim his moustache and how much did goalkeeper and captain Iker Casillas weigh when he was born, Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas and their team mates come up with some interesting and revealing answers.
from Photographers Blog:
Editing the Euro 2012
By Wolfgang Rattay
If you're really interested in understanding how we at Reuters work as a team across Europe to make sure that the right pictures from the Euro 2012 soccer championships arrive in time at hundreds of online sites and the next day in the papers, read this insight. You will understand that everyone in the team is an important cog in the machine and that not everything is someone sitting in the right corner of the pitch and triggering the camera's shutter. If you read until the end, you will be rewarded with Amanda's secret "spell-checker" recipe. It's worth it -- but only if you don't have any health issues with your stomach.
SLIDESHOW: BEST OF EURO 2012
At each game we have five photographers assigned to cover the match. Four are seated, preferably, in each far corner of the pitch near the corner pole and the fifth shooter has an elevated position in the middle of the tribune - more or less at the same position as the main TV cameras. The 'tribune photographer" shoots with three cameras. Two cameras are equipped with a 70-200mm zoom lens and aimed at both penalty boxes to make sure we have the image that tells the story of the game. This can be a goal, a penalty or a disallowed goal like in the England-Croatia match. The third camera is hand-held with either a four, five or six-hundred mm lens to shoot clear action (with green grass and no advertising boards), reactions of coached players and what ever else happens on the pitch.
Euro 2012 live blog
Click on the link below to join Reuters for the three-week European soccer party.
http://live.reuters.com/Event/Euro_2012_soccer_championship
Our live blog will be running constantly and will bring you all the latest news, goals, photos and video.
Greg Rusedski blog: Tough Wimbledon in store for Murray
This year’s Wimbledon draw has worked out very well for the defending champion Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, who are in the top half of the draw. They should breeze through the first week.
Djokovic will most likely face his first test in the quarter-finals against Richard Gasquet. While Federer’s first test could be Janko Tipsarevic in the quarter-finals as well; expect Djokovic and Federer in the semi-finals this year.
Another one gone in a shootout
By Phil O’Connor
So that’s it from me from Euro 2012 – by the time this post makes it to Left Field, I’ll be back in Stockholm gearing up for another European championships, this time in athletics.
Three weeks in Kiev at Euro 2012 flew by.
In any city hosting a major event there are hundreds of stories to be told, from security and commerce to politics and people, as well as football, and we did our best to tell as many as we could. Long days and nights followed, and I enjoyed every second of it.
from Photographers Blog:
Faces of football
By Kacper Pempel
Three weeks of the Euro 2012 adventure are already behind us. Three weeks of hard work, meeting thousands of people, driving thousands of miles and shooting thousands of pictures.
As a photographer based in Poland, I was assigned to cover not only matches but also news stories in Polish cities like Wroclaw, Poznan and Gdansk. So I had a chance to meet people from many different parts of Europe who made the journey here for the soccer fiesta. They were genuine football lovers and real soccer fans.
Expanded Euro 2016 could be a blessing, not a curse
During a so far excellent Euro 2012, there have been rumblings of discontent over the expansion of the tournament to 24 teams in four years’ time.
The big football nations of Europe will in all likelihood dread playing an extra game en route to the latter stages of what will be a month-long Euro 2016, if they don’t get knocked out by one of what will be a pack of success-hungry underdogs.
from Photographers Blog:
Covering the U.S. Open (and Tiger)
By Jeff Haynes
The U.S. Open is always one of the toughest events of the year to work. As photographers working a golf tournament we have to deal with more challenges during a week of golf than we might during the whole rest of the year. Weather, Tiger, blisters, Tiger, hills, Tiger, tight leader boards, Tiger, long days, Tiger, a sore body, Tiger, fog, Tiger, marshalls, Tiger and 155 other golfers not named Tiger.
REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
Working with three outstanding Reuters’ photographers - Robert Galbraith, covering what he figures is around his 80th Major Golf Tournament dating back to the 1982 U.S. Open where Watson and Nicklaus battled at Pebble Beach, Matt Sullivan and Danny Moloshok - made this a very enjoyable week. Each day these guys came up with amazing photographs telling the story of the day.
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