Broadcasting Career
In 1980 Rollason became deputy sports editor for Radio Essex. After a spell as a freelance sports producer and presenter, Rollason became a co-presenter of the children's news show Newsround in 1986, and she began presenting athletics coverage on Channel 4 in 1987. In 1990, she joined BBC Sport and presented from the 1990 Commonwealth Games. On 19 May 1990, Rollason became the first female presenter of Grandstand though she only presented a handful of further editions, in the summers of 1990 and 1991. Also in 1990 Rollason presented tennis coverage from Eastbourne and Wimbledon, and, in August 1990, she replaced David Icke as the main anchor of Sport on Friday and continued to present it until 1997. Rollason presented coverage of the 1990 World Disabled Games, as well as the 1992 Winter Olympics and the 1996 Summer Olympics, as well as being the BBC's principal presenter of the 1996 Paralympics. Rollason presented her last edition of Grandstand in 1993 and was passed over as presenter of the 1992 Summer Olympics. She specialised in coverage of athletics and, from 1994, yachting, but also covered swimming and golf, and also presented the sports news on BBC Breakfast News. In August 1997, it was announced that Rollason was suffering from colon cancer. In May 1999, following the relaunch of BBC News, Rollason became the sports presenter of the BBC Six O'Clock News on Fridays, and the following month she was made an MBE for services to sport broadcasting and charities.
Read more about this topic: Helen Rollason
Famous quotes containing the words broadcasting and/or career:
“We spend all day broadcasting on the radio and TV telling people back home what’s happening here. And we learn what’s happening here by spending all day monitoring the radio and TV broadcasts from back home.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)