Ask to use material, get more information or tell us about an item
Lance Cross recalls his years as a sports broadcaster from 1950 to 1970.
He discusses the evolution of sports reporting and broadcasting during his career. At the beginning, only rugby and cricket were routinely covered, but he helped expand coverage to include a broader range of sports. He considers that broadcast exposure increases public interest in the sport.
He talks about covering the Commonwealth Games of 1954. In 1952, coverage of the Olympic Games involved collecting shortwave broadcasts from around the world to rebroadcast. This was difficult and time consuming, and they were reliant on coverage from other countries which focussed on their own teams.
For the 1954 Commonwealth Games, he proposed they should send a team to cover the games from a New Zealand perspective; he and another reporter travelled to Vancouver to cover the games.
He continues with the 1956 Melbourne Olympics; he and four others provided radio coverage from 9:00am until midnight for the duration of the games.
He talks about covering subsequent games and the difficulties of covering all of the different sports with a small team. He then talks about Peter Snell's win at the Rome Olympics.