Louis Gilles: FISU Young Reporters Programme 'broadened my horizons'

Louis Gilles can vividly recall his first taste of a multi-sports event mixed zone, where athletes face the media only a few minutes after finishing on the Field of Play. The two-time FISU Young Reporter from France thinks these behind-the-scenes spaces can be some of the most illuminating in sports media, based on his own experiences of covering the Lake Placid 2023 and Chengdu 2021 FISU World University Games.

“It feels like you’re entering your own TV, somehow, because you always get the mixed zone images from the perspective of the camera,” the 24-year-old says. “It’s wild.”

Louis soon realised, however, that the live broadcast can never fully convey the commotion unfolding further down the line, where the agencies and written press journalists are often competing for the attention of the same athlete. This was particularly true of Chengdu, where the local media interest was intense.

“I was not expecting the mixed zones to be so busy,” he says. “There’s a lot of people and you have to fight to make yourself exist in the middle. It can be stressful, because there’s a lot to process and a lot of information to get. But you also learn a lot from your mistakes.

“I remember doing a lot of preparation for rhythmic gymnastics in Chengdu so I wouldn’t need to look at my phone when interviewing an athlete. But I was so focused on my questions, I barely listened to the answers. One of them was extremely good and there was a natural comeback question, but I missed it. When I took a step back afterwards, I realised ‘OK, that’s good, because now you know it’s also a discussion’. That helped me as an interviewer, for sure.”

Camaraderie

Louis says the support and camaraderie among his fellow young reporters helped to pull him through his early experiences in Lake Placid.

“We were like-minded, motivated people. There were six of us in two hotel rooms and even though we were on different assignments, for 12 days we basically lived together. For us, it worked super well. We still have a group chat that lives on and in August 2023 we went on holiday together. We spent three or four days in Paris, and I was lucky enough to be the tour guide.”

Covid motivation

For Louis, the shared experience was far removed from his first forays into sports journalism, when he worked as a multimedia editor for Eurosport under the cloud of the covid-19 pandemic.

“For two years during lockdown times I was working remotely from my home office – it took me seven months to even meet any of my colleagues,” he says. “It gave me a huge drive to be at the event, where the action is, and not reporting from a live stream.

“Being a FISU Games Young Reporter broadened my horizons in many ways. I was lucky enough that the two programmes I participated in were so far from home. For a French guy, the USA and China are pretty much the furthest you can go on each side. You enter a ball of multi-culturalism and that is amazing. It made me want to ‘eat the world’.”

Paris switch

Fortunately for Louis, the world then came to him. He landed a job at his ‘home’ Olympic Games in Paris last summer, only this time on the other side of the barrier, as a press conference supervisor. Suddenly, he was helping the media to do their jobs rather than reporting alongside them.

“While in Lake Placid, I realised the number of important roles which happen during these Games,” he says. “Being a liaison between the athlete and the media was a revelation. It was a huge asset to have been there as a journalist; you can walk in their shoes and know exactly what information they need, and when.”

Louis has since relocated from France to a full-time role in the Media Services team of the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games.

“My career took a slight turn, and that’s not something I had envisioned before, but there is always something unexpected coming your way (and) I’ve loved having this new arrow in my quiver,” he says.

“I would recommend 100% to apply for the FISU Young Reporters Programme. It’s a huge opportunity to get as close as you can to professional athletes, but also to some top-notch media professionals in their field.

“The more people you see with their own stories and their own paths, the better it is for you to have a broad sense of everything that can be done.”

Apply now and be part of it! All young reporting talents aged 18 to 25 can apply for the ‘Young Sports Media Talents’ programme until 28 February 2025. Further information and application details can be found here.

Photos: © Louis Gilles