IAAF World Championships in Osaka will get some media coverage

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about training and media influences throughout the month of August. This week, the IAAF World Championships begin in Osaka, Japan, and there will be some decent coverage of the events.

The event kicks off with the Men’s Marathon on August 25^th, and continues through September 2^nd when the Women’s Marathon and the relays are run. There will be 2 sessions each day, running roughly from 10:00 in the morning until noon, and from 7:00 in the evening until 10:30. (Being in Japan, those times are GMT + 9.)

The IAAF website will have the most up to date results available. They list a schedule of events for each day, and have a handy little clock that tells you what time it is in Osaka; Japan is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time and 16 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time.

The IAAF also offers daily radio broadcasts of the events, and will feature video highlights twice a day of the various races.

There are already a few podcasts and interviews available for download, and there will be many more once competition officially begins.

In a partnership with Nikon, the IAAF will also provide a full photo gallery of every event.

Outside of the IAAF website, there will also be numerous blogs covering the event, as well as the websites for the governing bodies of each countries athletics. You can expect that the USATF will provide frequent updates through each day.

For television coverage, Americans can get their fill if they have a cable or satellite television package that offers the Versus channel. Versus will have daily coverage of the events.

I do not currently have access to the Versus channel, but NBC has also come on board to broadcast coverage at the beginning and at the end of the Championships.

For those who live in the middle of the Pacific, there is going to be some great coverage on Sky TV. Looking at the schedule, it appears as though there will be coverage for the majority of the day almost every day of the event.

All television and radio listings above are subject to change, so be sure to check your local listings before assuming that what I wrote is correct.

I hope that you all get an opportunity to watch at least one or two events, whether you do it on your local television station or on the IAAF website or one of the numerous blogs or other sites covering the event. I also hope that there are some good records set, and that the newspapers jump on board to provide some front page coverage. That may be asking for a little too much, though.

Update: The World Champion Sports Network will also be covering the event, and has a $5/month service available for live feeds.