Blind Greek Champion Cyclist Sandalakis Takes Vodafone 5G On A Downhill Wild ‘Glorious Ride’

Vodafone (Greece) teamed up with agency Wunderman Thompson (Athens) and champion tandem cyclist Christos Sandalakis on a campaign that set the ride speeding down a mountain road to promote its 5g Giga Network.

The Greek Paralympic track cyclist and world champion tandem rider, who has 99% vision loss, stepped up to the challenge to see whether a blind man can race his bike down a winding mountain road – alone.

The answer is, yes, when they are supported by instantaneous communication provided by Vodafone’s 5G.

The campaign, which brought to life Sandalakis’ dream was to climb and descend a mountain alone with the support of the Vodafone Giga Network 5G which offers immediate response, is based on imagery transferred in real-time from Christos’s helmet to his colleague who gave him live guidance instructions.

“It was essential to gain Christos’ trust and get him used to my cameras being so close,” said Director Patramis. “I spent some time at his home, filming him work through his day; waking up, training indoors, being with his bike and then to the velodrome to work out with his tandem partner, Sotiris. My idea was to capture Christo’s path, in parallel with the control room (where the instructions were given), to experience the thrill and tension on both sides. First we chose a location on the mountain that had almost no signal from any network, setting up our own 5G antenna. The signal path had to be visible in its entirety from the antenna, keeping the signal strong for the entire three miles stretch Christos would cover. We wanted to feature some exciting curves going downhill so Christos could get up some speed. Our goal was for him to feel that same sense of velocity alone that he experiences in a velodrome. That meant going downhill at 50 miles per hour.”

The campaign was created for Vodafone Greece by a Wunderman Thompson Athens team which included Executive Creative Office Lazaros Efmorfias, Associate Creative Directors Yiannis Tsaganelias and Dimitris Drakatos and Producers Eleni Asvesta and Giorgos Alexandris with CoMPANY Films director Harry Patramanis.

Links:

Vodafone Greece

https://www.vodafone.gr/

Wunderman Thompson

https://www.wundermanthompson.com/