In women’s athletics today, the real battleground is not the track or the sand pit, but the lens—where broadcasters are being asked to choose sport appeal over sex appeal and to treat camera framing as an ethical as well as an artistic decision. Key Points The European Broadcasting Union and European Athletics have issued a 23-page “Raising the Bar” guide that formally defines respectful camera work for women’s athletics. The document singles out low, close-up, and lingering angles—especially in slow motion—as key mechanisms of sexualization and shows practical alternatives that still serve storytelling. Elite athletes contributed to the guidelines, reporting that intrusive camera placement can disrupt concentration and create persistent discomfort. The guidance sits within a wider shift in sports media governance, echoing IOC portrayal guidelines and similar protocols that promote “sport appeal, not sex appeal.” Critics object to what they see as subjective standards and de facto restrictions on broadcast creativity, raising bigger questions about who controls the look and feel of sport. From Unwritten Norms to a 23-Page Standard “Raising the Bar: Guidelines for respectful media coverage in women’s athletics” is not a loose memo or a press release; it is a formal 23-page technical document, published by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in partnership with European Athletics, aimed squarely at directors, camera operators, and production teams. Its core promise is precise: practical guidance on camera work and broadcast direction that keeps athletic performance, editorial integrity, and professional dignity at the center of the frame. That framing matters because for decades, decisions about how to shoot women in sport were governed by tradition, habit, and ratings logic rather than by any explicit professional ethics. The guide focuses on women’s track and field—high jump, pole vault, long jump, horizontal jumps, and running events—where the combination of fitted uniforms, explosive movement, and televised slow motion has made objectifying images easy to create and easy to justify as “part of the drama.” What the EBU and European Athletics have done is take those practices out of the realm of intuition and into the realm of codified standards: here are the angles we have used, here is why some of them are problematic, and here is how to change them without losing the essence of the sport. How Sexualizing Angles Actually Work The guidelines are unusually concrete. They distinguish “Positive Angles” from “Negative Angles” using diagrams and side-by-side examples from actual broadcasts. Positive angles are generally higher, wider, and oriented toward the whole athletic action—run-up, take-off, flight, landing—so that the viewer’s eye is invited to study technique and rhythm rather than isolated body parts. Negative angles, by contrast, are low, tight, and partial: a camera placed underneath a high jumper, a close-up framed from behind a sprinter on the blocks, or a lingering slow-motion replay that fixates on a landing rather than on the jump itself. One example the guide highlights is a low camera placed near the sand pit in the long jump. From that position, the landing can easily become a shot dominated by crotch and torso, especially if the operator tracks the athlete’s body rather than the arc of the jump. The guideline notes that “a low camera angle underneath the athlete has a high chance of generating compromising images,” and that remaining on this view through the landing and exit “is likely to produce an unflattering image” that adds little technical insight. The recommended alternative is a slightly higher, wider angle showing approach, take-off, and landing in one continuous movement, which still allows for replay and analysis but does not reduce the athlete to a body part. Slow motion is treated with the same forensic eye. The guide warns that slow-motion clips “that serve no sporting purpose can be taken out of context and shared online in inappropriate ways” and urges directors to reserve slow motion for sequences that genuinely help explain technique. In other words, a slow-motion study of a pole vaulter’s plant and bar clearance is valuable; a slow-motion replay that dwells on a contorted landing or a wardrobe mishap is not. That distinction matters in a media environment where a few seconds of footage can be clipped, re-captioned, and circulated globally without the original broadcast’s context. Athletes as Co-Authors, Not Subjects Crucially, “Raising the Bar” is not written only from the vantage point of broadcasters; elite athletes helped shape it. Olympic medallists Blanka Vlašić, Holly Bradshaw, and Ivana Španović worked with the EBU and European Athletics to map camera positions and discuss which angles felt intrusive or distracting in competition. Bradshaw, a pole vault specialist, has spoken publicly about camera placement affecting her concentration and about becoming acutely aware of lenses positioned in “uncomfortable places” during approach and plant. That testimony is anecdotal, not statistical, but in elite sport, the line between comfort and distraction can be thin. A camera under a pole vault bar is not merely a technical device; for the athlete, it is an object placed directly where failure or awkward movement may occur. The guidelines respond to those concerns by treating athletes as participants in the visual design of the event, not as passive objects to be captured however directors see fit. That is a subtle but important shift: ethics here are not abstract; they are grounded in the lived experience of the people in front of the camera. “Not a List of Restrictions” – But Functionally Norm-Setting The EBU takes pains to insist that “this is not a list of restrictions.” The text explicitly frames itself as a demonstration of how “the most compromising shots can be avoided with no loss of storytelling or visual quality” across the events it covers. That language is strategic. Broadcasters, especially in commercial environments, are wary of any external body telling them what angles they may use; the guidelines present themselves instead as an elevation of craft—better pictures, sharper focus on performance, fewer ethical landmines. Critics are not wrong to note that some of the recommendations operate as de facto prohibitions. When a guideline says that low-angle shots from underneath or behind athletes should be avoided because they are likely to produce compromising images, it is functionally telling directors: do not use this traditional technique in this context. Likewise, the caution against slow-motion replays that “serve no sporting purpose” implicitly narrows the repertoire of dramatic devices that have long been part of athletics broadcasting. More substantively, some of the key terms—“compromising images,” “unflattering image,” “sexualized shots”—are not defined in technical metrics such as camera height or lens focal length. This leaves interpretation to editorial judgment. For a supportive reader, that flexibility is a feature, allowing directors to adapt on the fly and apply common sense. For a skeptical one, it is a bug: a vague standard that can justify post-hoc criticism of almost any creative choice. Why This Fits a Larger Governance Shift To understand why a broadcasting union is suddenly in the business of specifying camera angles, you have to place “Raising the Bar” in a broader timeline. In 2018, the International Olympic Committee released its own Portrayal Guidelines, urging media to avoid “crotch shots, cleavage, backsides” and to think in terms of “sport appeal, not sex appeal.” Those guidelines did not dictate exact camera positions; they established an ethical horizon. Olympic coverage since has been nudged toward framing athletes as athletes, not as celebrities or objects. Academic work reinforces the rationale. Cheryl Cooky, Michael Messner, and Michela Musto’s 2015 study of televised sports coverage found that while overtly sexualized portrayals of women had declined, women athletes were still marginalized and framed more often in off-court roles such as mothers rather than as competitors. More recent media analyses and advocacy, including the EBU’s own “Reimagining Sport” report, argue for gender-balanced coverage, equal production quality, and on-air talent who are passionate and knowledgeable about women’s sport. The EBU’s women’s athletics guidelines are effectively the production-level operationalization of those values: if you want parity in portrayal, you also have to change how you shoot, edit, and replay. Other sports have moved in similar directions. The International Federation of Sport Climbing condemned the “objectification of the human body” after complaints about close-up images of climbers and endorsed guidance not to focus on crotch shots, but to anchor screen time in performance. Broadly, then, “Raising the Bar” is not a bolt from the blue; it is part of a decade-long pattern in which rights holders and federations treat imagery itself as a site of gender equality policy. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), working with European Athletics, has introduced new broadcasting guidelines aimed at reducing the sexualization of women athletes during TV coverage. – Avoid low-angle camera shots that unnecessarily focus on an athlete’s chest, buttocks,… pic.twitter.com/oLjq0SmEMM — Pirat_Nation (@Pirat_Nation) July 14, 2026 Backlash, Ambiguity, and the Question of Control Despite that context, the guidelines have triggered lively backlash. Social media discussions and outlets like Outkick describe them as Europe “cracking down” on sexualized shots, warn that artistic freedom is being curtailed, and circulate images of the diagrams as proof that traditional visuals are being policed. Some critics argue that by targeting coverage of women’s events specifically, the EBU risks reinforcing a paternalistic narrative: women as vulnerable subjects who need to be protected from being seen, rather than as athletes who can decide how they wish to be portrayed. There is also institutional unease. The EBU’s historic role has been to coordinate public service broadcasters and jointly acquire rights, a function that European competition law has scrutinized because it can “restrict or even eliminate competition” among members. By moving into content guidelines, the union inevitably raises questions about whether a body with substantial bargaining power in media markets is now shaping editorial choices as well as rights packages. What is missing so far is robust empirical evaluation on either side. The guidelines themselves do not present quantitative data about how often sexualizing angles appear in current coverage or how they affect audience perception or athlete performance. Critics, in turn, provide no evidence that adopting wider, technique-focused angles reduces ratings, diminishes drama, or harms viewer engagement. Both sides trade on plausibility and values rather than on measurement. That gap suggests an obvious next step: systematic audits of pre- and post-guideline broadcasts, paired with viewer studies, to see whether changing the angle meaningfully changes anything else. What This Means for the Future of Sports Imagery The deeper stakes in “Raising the Bar” reach beyond women’s athletics. In any televised sport, imagery is the primary way fans experience performance, and the language of images is powerful enough to shape who is seen as a serious athlete and who is framed as spectacle. By codifying camera guidance, the EBU and European Athletics are asserting that this language is not neutral and that it can be governed. That is a significant claim: it turns the technical craft of directing into an arena for ethics and policy. For production teams, that means treating camera plans with the same rigor as safety protocols or competition rules. Where do you place the pit camera? How long do you hold a tight shot after the finish line? When does slow motion illuminate technique and when does it merely dwell on a strain or a stumble? These are questions of editorial culture, not just of artistry. For athletes, it offers the prospect of not having to choose between visibility and dignity—of being seen clearly, but not reduced. And for viewers, especially those who have invested decades in watching women fight for serious coverage, it offers a quiet but meaningful recalibration. You still get the run, the jump, the race. You simply see less of the gratuitous zoom, the lingering angle from below, the replay that exists only because the shot looked suggestive. The sport becomes, in the words of the IOC guidelines, about athleticism and sporting prowess rather than about intimate body parts. Whether broadcast culture fully embraces that shift will depend on how directors, commentators, and rights holders internalize these standards—and on whether audiences reward coverage that makes performance, not sexualization, the heart of the image. Sources: zerohedge.com, ebu.ch, timesofindia.indiatimes.com, facebook.com, eurovision.com, linkedin.com, reddit.com, politico.eu, ynetnews.com, petapixel.com, tandfonline.com, theguardian.com, stillmed.olympics.com, olympics.com, sirensport.com.au