Rob Walker: “I used to be born to do commentary” (from the RBR Archives, Glasgow 2024)

I obtained a word from our readers relating to the standard of the worldwide commentary. Hannah England and Rob Walker are doing nearly the entire periods. I assumed that our readers may get pleasure from this piece on Rob Walker by Deji Ogeyingbo from Glasgow 2024. Please get pleasure from! (Sure, we will likely be doing a chunk on Hannah England.) 

Rob Walker is likely one of the major commentators in World Athletics occasions. Within the Olympics, Rob Walker anchors most evenings on the eleven days of the worldwide broadcast! Rob Walker is an excellent announcer, effectively revered for his candor and his information. We thought you may prefer to be taught extra about him, on this effectively executed piece by Deji Ogeyingbo from the World Indoor Champs from March 2024. 

That is Deji Ogeyingbo’s interview with Rob Walker. Rob Walker is a commentator for the ages and has spent the final 3 days commentating on each second of the World Championships. In your editor’s thoughts, Rob Walker has been a commentator for ages. In Doha 2019, I used to be sick one evening and listened to Rob do World Athletics Radio. He captured the Males’s excessive leap, the place 40,000 Qataris screamed for Mutaz Essa Barshim. It was a second for me (I all the time advocate WA Radio for individuals who can’t watch the WA Champs).

Rob Walker is an amazingly proficient commentator, and sure, he was born to do commentary!

Rob Walker: “I used to be born to do commentary”

A talented athletics commentator can brighten up the dullest of monitor meets and improve the viewing expertise when the on-field motion is entertaining. Rob Walker is adept at capturing the temper of a world championship and transmitting it to these watching alongside at house.

The British Commentator has made a reputation for himself because the voice many look ahead to listening to on the Athletics and Snooker world championships.

Walker began as a broadcaster in his early years till his breakthrough got here in 2007 when he took the prospect to go to the World Championships in Osaka to take the lead for Commentary. At that time, he knew he didn’t need to be within the combined zone; he was born to run Commentary.

“At all times be ready”. That’s his go-to mantra in terms of getting it proper. We caught up with him on the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, and he has this to say about a few of his finest moments.

Deji: What has been your best-ever World Championships?

Rob: That’s so tough. All of them have a novel attraction. I’ll always remember my first World Athletes Championship in Helsinki in 2005 as a result of I first fell in love with athletics watching Helsinki in 83 after I was 8 years previous, and it was pouring rain in Helsinki. There have been some sensible performances from nice athletes, in order that’s a particular one, however I additionally suppose Budapest final summer season was off the dimensions. How we had been made to really feel welcome by the folks of Hungary, the profile, and the significance they connected to internet hosting the occasion was unimaginable. Subsequently, the standard of the athletes and the tales unfolded on these sweaty and balmy nights had been phenomenal. It was the very best version of the World Athletes Competitors I’ve labored on, and I’ve executed 10.  It was the very best of the lot.

Deji: Was your favourite piece of commentary at an occasion ever?

Rob: That’s such a tough one to reply, however I feel it was Karsten Warholm who decimated the World Document in Tokyo 2021; I noticed Kyron McMaster breaking the Commonwealth Video games report, Santos breaking the South American report, and giving us a sign of why he’ll develop into the worldwide champion in Eugene the next 12 months. That males’s hurdles, although there was hardly anybody there, was very particular, as was the final occasion of Budapest 23 when Femke Bol, having fallen en path to what ought to have been gold for the Dutch within the combined 4x400m on the primary evening, gained the gold for the Dutch Quartet actually on the road with a push for the tape. You couldn’t have scripted a greater finish to the very best version of the world athletics championships we’ve ever had. It was superior.

Deji: The boys’s 100-meter closing on the Olympics or the boys’s 10,000 on the Olympics?

Rob: It is going to be 10,000 as a result of I do know the boys’s 100-meter on the Olympics is a very iconic second as a result of it marks the quickest human being on earth at that second, and there are various folks on earth. I simply suppose the best way the momentum irresistibly constructed within the 10,000m is essentially the most intense sporting drama for women and men. You simply can’t beat 10,000. It’s completely unbelievable.

Deji: Any piece of commentary that you just really feel or remorse not having executed in your years of commentating?

Rob: earlier than I began as a commentator, Haile Gebrselassie was towards Tergat within the closing of the boys’s 10,000 in Sydney; that race was so shut that even should you watch it now on YouTube 24 years later, you’ll nonetheless suppose Haile Gebrselassie was going to win. It was such an ideal rivalry. That they had an outstanding method of respect between the 2 iconic figures, and I feel that’s the most unbelievable race over 10,000 meters I’ve ever seen. Nonetheless, it was earlier than my time as a commentator, so I watched it as a substitute of engaged on it.

Deji: Throughout your time as a commentator, which second do you suppose you’ll have executed justice to?

Rob: I feel Kipchoge’s profitable back-to-back golds within the marathon so lengthy after getting a medal on the monitor in 2004 and 2008 was unimaginable. Additionally, Bolt doubled in Berlin in 2009. I keep in mind not being the lead commentator on the 100m- the 9.58s as I co-commentated. When the race was on, the lead commentator, Peter Matthew (who sadly has handed away), I keep in mind taking my headphones off and taking a second to savor the sight of somebody working like that. I keep in mind even considering I used to be undecided I might ever stay lengthy sufficient to see a human being faster than that with the bare eye. After which, in a blink, the race was over, and I put my headphones again. There are such a lot of moments. One second has but to occur, and I sincerely hope she does it in Paris as a result of I feel it’s coming. I might like to see Shericka Jackson develop into the Olympic champion for the 200m, and I feel for her to take action, she should break Flo-Jo’s Data. It’s been coming, and he or she’s been getting nearer. If she has an injury-free buildup to Paris, it’d eventually be her final time.

Deji: What second do you need to touch upon in Paris?

Rob: The Ladies’s 800m. If we’ve Athing Mu, Mary Moora, and Keely Hodgkinson all match, I feel that will likely be an iconic race. I additionally look ahead to the boys’s marathon with a heavy coronary heart. I assumed Kelvin Kiptum would break 2 hours on April 14 at Rotterdam, and I assumed he could be the favourite to beat Kipchoge in Paris. Nevertheless, I nonetheless suppose the Kipchoge second could be huge as a result of he can have the emotion of understanding Kiptum isn’t on his workforce. Nonetheless, relying on how he runs in Tokyo this weekend, I feel he would do one thing no man or girl ever does once more. Three marathon golds within the Olympics again to again will likely be unimaginable. Abebe Bikila and Waldemar Cierpinski have executed two; Kipchoge has executed two, however to be the primary and solely to do three in a row over the marathon, the space was so nice that it may go flawed so lengthy after he gained medals on the monitor. 2004 and 2008 could be a second that can go down in historical past, so the boys’s marathon could be very particular however will likely be modified to unhappiness as a result of Kelvin Kiptum gained’t be there.