The Athletic’s Adam Leventhal was one of seven U.K. entries in the final stage of the annual AIPS Awards; he was in Rabat, Morocco, to collect the trophy for first place in the Writing Best Colour Piece category; here, he discusses the background to his powerful award-winning article…
The Athletic’s Adam Leventhal is the latest British winner of a major international sports journalism award.
Leventhal was in Morocco on Tuesday night to attend the seventh annual edition of the AIPS Sport Media Awards, having made it to the final stage in the Writing Best Colour Piece category.
He was one of seven entrants representing the U.K. to be in contention for success at the ceremony, in the Audio, Photography Portfolio, Photography Sport Action, and Young Reporters Writing categories.
Previous British winners include The Guardian’s Suzy Wrack, documentary film-maker Louis Myles, and CNN Sport’s Jack Bantock.
It proved to be a night to remember in Rabat for Leventhal when he was named the winner for his February 2024 article, titled ‘Christian Atsu – one year on from the search to find him. Through the eyes of those closest to him.’
The feature was published 12 months after the devastating earthquake in Turkiye and Syria, which claimed the lives of around 60,000 people, including Atsu, who perished when the Antakya block of flats he was living in collapsed.
The Ghana international winger was just 31. Back in the U.K., his partner Marie-Claire and his twin sister Christiana had to wait 12 days before receiving confirmation of his death.
Atsu had signed for Chelsea in 2013, and had loan spells at Everton, Bournemouth and Newcastle United. In 2017, he signed permanently with the latter, with whom he made 75 Premier League appearances.
Leventhal’s article featured exclusive interviews with Marie-Claire, Christiana and also Nana Sechere, the player’s agent and close friend, who assisted in the search.
The AIPS Sport Media Awards are free-to-enter and offer cash prizes for the podium places in the senior categories, while Young Reporters category winners receive AIPS scholarships at a top sporting event.
Here, we speak to Adam to learn more about the story behind his award-winning article…
SJA: Adam, many congratulations on your success. What was your experience like in Rabat?
AL: Thank you. It was really quite heartwarming to be in a room with so many up-and-coming and established journalists from all over the world.
Our category was announced last so I was waiting right until the end to get the good news! I’m very proud to have won.
Stories such as this are so emotional for everybody involved. Can you tell us some of the background?
At The Athletic, we initially covered the aftermath of the disaster and the heart-wrenching discovery of Christian’s body.
Then a year on, it was about trying to gauge how his family and friends were processing what had happened. It was still very raw, and Marie-Claire was also carrying their three children through that process.
I remember sitting with her at the family home in Newcastle. There was certainly an emptiness there, and at the same time, a mother who dearly loves their children and wants them to remember their father.
Nana had been due to be out in Turkiye when the disaster struck, but a quirk of fate changed his plans, otherwise he would have been with Christian.
In my acceptance speech, I dedicated the award to all of them – Marie-Claire, their children, his sister Christiana, and Nana. I messaged Nana to tell him that, and he said he appreciated it.
When you cover a story like this, and you’re very close to the people involved, it becomes a lifelong connection. You always come back to that and want to make sure they’re OK.
We certainly know from the comments underneath the article that it touched a lot of people. In turn, that will have helped those who have gone through similar situations of grief and loss.
You’ve been successful at previous SJA British Sports Journalism Awards [Audio Documentary winner in 2022 and 2023] and you were also ‘Top 10’ shortlisted for an AIPS Sport Media Award last year. Why is it important to enter the AIPS Awards in particular?
Whether you’ve previously won a domestic award or you’re just simply proud of your work, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t enter.
The AIPS Awards are an opportunity to be judged alongside not only your peers in your own country, but those across the world, and that’s a positive thing.
Also, you get to see the array of work that is being produced globally. It gives you a good understanding of how things are being covered, and approached through a different country’s perspective. That’s always healthy.
What would be your advice to young sports writers who might see this and want to follow in your footsteps?
What I’d say is that you might not find your niche straight away – I’ve been through my own journey from broadcasting into writing, and then combining the two.
The stories that really strike a chord with me are human stories and that’s what a lot of people can do. So if you see what you think is a good story, put it forward to an editor with as strong a case as you can, then go for it – try and tell that story.
Ultimately, you have to persevere in this industry. Having seen those who have won SJA and AIPS Awards, whether they’re writers, photographers etc, on whatever platform, there’s opportunities out there.
You just have to stick with it and be passionate about what you want to do.
I feel fortunate that The Athletic have backed me to cover some really challenging stories over the last few years.
They deserve a lot of credit for investing in this sort of journalism, that sometimes goes very much off the beaten track or that might be hard to cover or logistically complex.
I enjoy doing it so much and I’m thankful they’re on the same page as me.
Thank you to Adam for the Q&A – follow him on social media at @AdamLeventhal on X, @theadamleventhal on Instagram, and @adamleventhal.bsky.social on Bluesky.
Congratulations to the other U.K. entries recognised at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. The full list:
AUDIO: 5th – Carys Wall, ‘Amazing Sport Stories: Chasing Mountains’ – Bespoken Media; 3rd – Ashish Sharma, ‘Football’s Financial Fairplay’ – BBC; 2nd – Andrew Todos, ‘Play On! How football returned to war-torn Ukraine!’ – talkSPORT
PHOTOGRAPHY SPORT ACTION: 10th= – Richard Heathcote, ‘On the nose’ – Getty Images; Molly Darlington, ‘Making a splash’ – Reuters; Adrian Dennis, ‘Try line tackle’ – AFP; 3rd – Mike Egerton, ‘Simone Biles’ – PA Media
PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO: 8th – Andrew Boyers, ‘Olympic Sailing’ – Action Images / Reuters; 2nd – Edward Whitaker, ‘Global Horse Racing’ – Racing Post
WRITING BEST COLOUR PIECE: 3rd – Steve Menary, ‘Greek Tragedy’ – Josimar; 1st – Adam Leventhal, ‘Christian Atsu – One year on from the search to find him. Through the eyes of those closest to him.’ – The Athletic
YOUNG REPORTERS WRITING: 3rd – Issy Ronald, ‘For even the most successful Olympians, life after the Games can be like ‘going down that cliff’’ – CNN Sport
Special Mentions
Raising awareness on mental health – Issy Ronald (as above)
Parasports reporting – Paul Carter, ‘Breaking barriers in Paralympics’ – BBC TechXPlore
Social Role of Sports – Theo Lee Ray, ‘The Club That George Built’ – TNT Sports & Discovery+
Insight on sports science – Amy Woodyatt, ‘They played for their country in their 20s. By their 40s, they had early onset dementia’ – CNN Sport
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