Passions: Why reporting on an obscure sport is my favourite hobby

Reporting on skating is almost more fun than actual doing it

Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Picture: Matthew Stockman/Getty

A Facebook memory from more than ten years ago popped up the other day, which made me laugh.

“Jane is working as a sports reporter today, for the first – and probably last – time ever”, it said, in that early-2010s-status-update-in-the-third-person style.

I wasn’t actually working as a sports reporter. I was – as consumer affairs correspondent at the time – covering the financial woes of Rangers Football Club.

The reason this was worth status-updating about back then is that I was the least likely person to ever report on sport in any way: I didn’t really play sport; I didn’t watch sport; and I definitely didn’t write about sport.

As a former business editor, I was quite comfortable in the world of Company Voluntary Arrangements, ring fencing creditors and appointing liquidators, but throw in talk of leagues, managers and selling players and my head exploded.

What was funny about being reminded of that status update is that I’m now lucky enough that being a sports reporter is my hobby. Not football - I still don’t understand the offside rule – but figure skating. I cover many of the major international competitions for The Scotsman, chat to the British champions and once got mistaken for being Lilah Fear’s (GB Olympic ice dancer) mum.

To be clear, this is not my day job – I do it for fun, while the real sports reporters get on with the big stories in football, rugby and golf. In my actual working life, I cover world affairs and watching figure skating, in all of its sparkly, entertaining glory, is a welcome escape from reporting on wars, earthquakes and famines. I skate myself – albeit very badly - having taken it up in my late 30s, but I almost enjoy reporting on it more.

Our sports desk humours me, kindly signing letters of accreditation to allow me to acquire press passes for the European, World or British Figure Skating Championships – and letting me post reports online to my heart’s content. Even I have to admit that it is not a mainstream interest in Scotland, so the fact they allow me a few column inches in print when our ice dancers win a medal is most appreciated.

Gaining access to an inside track into something I am already so passionate about is a huge privilege. It has allowed me to understand the sport at a completely different level and has sustained a personal interest which may well have otherwise waned on freezing cold mornings at Murrayfield, practising backwards crossrolls in a corner before most people have got out of bed. I just need to cross my fingers that eventually, even a smidgen of the talent, skill and grace of our elite athletes rubs off on me.

Jane Bradley is World Editor of The Scotsman