ROAD RUNNING
Revolutionising
Running TV
Livestream broadcasts of road running events has become the ‘in
thing’ at the bigger events in South Africa this year, so we chatted
to Modern Athlete columnist and features writer Manfred Seidler,
who has worked in broadcasting for more than 20 years, and was
involved in all of these trailblazing broadcasts. – BY SEAN FALCONER
Two years after those Olympics, Manfred tried his
own hand at running, managing around 33 minutes
for 10km, and while in the army in 1989, he ran
his first marathon, clocking 3:36, followed by a
Comrades Marathon in 10:38. “I never wanted to
run Comrades, but when the army said I would get
10 days’ leave in Durban if I ran, I said sign me up!”
In 1995 he signed up with coach Dave Spence and
managed 77 minutes in the half marathon, but his
promising running career was cut short as work
demands increased.
He had become involved in sports media, marketing
and PR in 1994 with a company called Competitive
Link, which subsequently became API, then Octagon.
Much of his work was in athletics and road running,
and by 1997 he says he had stopped racing. “I simply
had too many red-eye flights for work, and it was not
possible to maintain a proper training schedule. If I
was going to run, I wanted to be competitive... and to
be honest, it was a lot more fun on the back of press
truck then getting up early to pound out mileage.”
24
Jeppe Marathon | 9 February 2020
Invaluable Experience
Fast forward to today and Manfred, now 50 and
living in Centurion, has accumulated a veritable
ton of experience in the media side of the sport,
as a journalist, radio and TV presenter, interviewer,
researcher, analyst, cameraman, producer and more.
For many years he was involved in the television
programmes World of Endurance and Athletics Alive,
with the latter show giving him the opportunity to
travel extensively. “We ‘chased’ SA athletes all over
to get the stories, and I was living my dream, getting
paid to travel the world and hang out with and watch
the world’s top athletes in action.”
In 1998 he co-produced the broadcast of the Soweto
Marathon with Vince Gibbons, helping to produce
pre-race footage, overseeing the filming on race
day, and putting together the highlights package,
but says his one complaint was not being allowed
to do commentary. “I was seriously ticked off that I
was not given a shot at it, but Vince saw me more
as a producer. I believe I could have been doing
commentary since way back then.”
Fortunately, his chance did eventually come this past
April, and he grabbed it with both hands. “Three days
before the Two Oceans Marathon, I received a call
Manfred Seidler and Cuan
Walker at Two Oceans
I
t all started with the 1984 Olympic Games. A young
Manfred Seidler, then 15, couldn’t watch the Games
on South African television, but his family knew
a German family down the road who had German
satellite TV, and he was enthralled by the athletics. “I
watched athletes such as Carl Lewis, Sebastian Coe,
Steve Cram and more in action, and I just fell in love
with athletics,” he recalls. It was also his first taste of
live coverage of the sport, and planted a seed that
would bear fruit later in his own career in the running
industry.