BBC commentators

ugo.santalucia

... can anyone sack them?

I was watching the Madison... while Italy, France, Belgium and Germany were battling for the medals, the commentators were going on about Britain and Australia, which were nowhere near in contention for anything... WTF??? Are they not able to accept there is a whole world beyond the Queen's domains :?

thegibdog

So you're saying that they shouldn't tailor their commentary to their audience?

meanredspider

There's a clue in your subject line, Ugo it's not the Italian/French/Belgian/German Broadcasting Corporation

It's funny - the Scots often have the same complaint in commentary of England games - until you listen to the Scots commentating on a Scotland match!

ugo.santalucia

The point is there was a race for the medal they completely disregarded, looking at Britan that had two I said two points, while France had 15 and Italy 13 or so. Madison is not obvious and requires good commentary, the BBC one was dreadful...

meanredspider

ugo.santalucia wrote:

The point is there was a race for the medal they completely disregarded, looking at Britan that had two I said two points, while France had 15 and Italy 13 or so. Madison is not obvious and requires good commentary, the BBC one was dreadful...

I've never watched the Madison before and I followed it perfectly. You're just pi55ed that France beat Italy by a point

ugo.santalucia

meanredspider wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

The point is there was a race for the medal they completely disregarded, looking at Britan that had two I said two points, while France had 15 and Italy 13 or so. Madison is not obvious and requires good commentary, the BBC one was dreadful...

I've never watched the Madison before and I followed it perfectly. You're just pi55ed that France beat Italy by a point

I actually think the BBC staff at this worlds is unprepared... they have ran out of things to say basically.

Previously the women team pursuit final: they tried to keep the excitement going "can they pull it back?" when it was obvious from the second lap that Australia was going to thrash them and at the end won by nearly 3 seconds... :roll:

meanredspider

Yup - I guess they were just trying to keep it interesting (when it wasn't). At least there's no advert breaks...

thegibdog

Just watched it and thought the commentary was pretty good, especially compared to what Eurosport have been dishing up for Andalucia. Bear in mind that this was on BBC2 and so catering to the general British audience rather than a cycling audience.

Re pulling back 3 seconds in the pursuit, did you not see what happened to Bobridge?

ugo.santalucia

thegibdog wrote:

Just watched it and thought the commentary was pretty good, especially compared to what Eurosport have been dishing up for Andalucia. Bear in mind that this was on BBC2 and so catering to the general British audience rather than a cycling audience.

Re pulling back 3 seconds in the pursuit, did you not see what happened to Bobridge?

We'll have to agree to disagree

joelsim

meanredspider wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

You're just pi55ed off that France beat Italy by a point

FTFY, whilst we are being British rather than American.

meanredspider

Joelsim wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

You're just pi55ed off that France beat Italy by a point

FTFY, whilst we are being British rather than American.

Thanks - I did mean to write the "off" - so good catch. Fixed the quotes for you in return

Omar Little

I think the commentating was a bit too general but probably to be expected if it was going out on BBC2.

As for the Madison - GB had a lap and were leading the race regardless of the points, Italy, France and Spain were trying to take it back while GB and Australia were isolated and trying to hold on so having focus on the British riders wasnt quite as parochial as you are suggesting.

oldwelshman

ugo.santalucia wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

The point is there was a race for the medal they completely disregarded, looking at Britan that had two I said two points, while France had 15 and Italy 13 or so. Madison is not obvious and requires good commentary, the BBC one was dreadful...

I've never watched the Madison before and I followed it perfectly. You're just pi55ed that France beat Italy by a point

I actually think the BBC staff at this worlds is unprepared... they have ran out of things to say basically.

Previously the women team pursuit final: they tried to keep the excitement going "can they pull it back?" when it was obvious from the second lap that Australia was going to thrash them and at the end won by nearly 3 seconds... :roll:

Ugo do you know anything about track cycling?
If you did, then you would realise that even though the GB team only had 2 points, at that point in the race they were still in gold medal position as they were a lap up. In the Maddison it does not matter if a team had 0 points but were 1 lap up on a team with 100 points, the team a lap up wins, so they were correctly commentating on the GB team trying to get back to the front group with the Aussies.
As for the pursuit, you clearly have no idea about pursuiting and pacing If you look at the mens final Bobridge did same as he did for the hour record attempt, went to fast and blew. The GB ladies were riding to their schedule. It is better to ride to a schedule as the coach knows the best schedule for the riders as they will have tried many things, faster start different order of riders, gears, when to change etc The GB ride was fast just the Aussies were faster. It is a new event so can expect rides like this for a while.

oldwelshman

By the way in a pursuit, if you push too hard and gain a second in a lap (which is a lot) approximately you will loose 2 sec per lap later. It is not like a TT, if you go into the red you will not recover. This is why "most" riders ride to even lap pace and coach walks the line.

Gazzetta67

Off subject - BBC's Cycling man in the "know" Matt Slater ? maybe both he and Carlton Kirby should sit a cycling proficiency type test for alleged journo's :idea:

stagehopper

Pendleton's performance was a bit strange - bigging up Varnish as potentially better than her in the run up, refusing to criticise some woeful GB performances at the championships then coming across extremely "sniffy/off-hand" when questioned about the one GB female sprinter to win World titles since Pendleton retired, Becky James. All topped off with the suggestion she would have carried on to Rio if asked - which contradicts everything she has said about the experience of London and the unbearable pressure she could barely cope with.

argyllflyer

Gazzetta67 wrote:

Off subject - BBC's Cycling man in the "know" Matt Slater ? maybe both he and Carlton Kirby should sit a cycling proficiency type test for alleged journo's :idea:

Though i feel Kirby gets better every season - especially now that he commentates on virtually every big race for someone or other - and is entertaining to listen to.

I popped on Paris-Roubaix from 2010 the other week and was quickly reminded of the sneering superficial tone of his predecessor who to be fair I did miss at first. But no longer.

Pross

stagehopper wrote:

Pendleton's performance was a bit strange - bigging up Varnish as potentially better than her in the run up, refusing to criticise some woeful GB performances at the championships then coming across extremely "sniffy/off-hand" when questioned about the one GB female sprinter to win World titles since Pendleton retired, Becky James. All topped off with the suggestion she would have carried on to Rio if asked - which contradicts everything she has said about the experience of London and the unbearable pressure she could barely cope with.

Pendleton is just a bit strange full stop!

I know British Cycling tend to time things to the Olympic cycle but this World Champs on top of a fairly unsuccessful one last year suggests there's a lot to do in just over a year. The worrying thing is that it doesn't seem like the Brits have slipped back, more that the bar has been raised to new levels in the endurance events. The British sprint team in particular appear to be struggling following the loss of Hoy and Pendleton. Becky looked set to step up but illness and injury have kept her back. The good news is she is back on the bike but it will be a struggle to get back to the top level by next summer.

blazing_saddles

stagehopper wrote:

Pendleton's performance was a bit strange - bigging up Varnish as potentially better than her in the run up, refusing to criticise some woeful GB performances at the championships then coming across extremely "sniffy/off-hand" when questioned about the one GB female sprinter to win World titles since Pendleton retired, Becky James. All topped off with the suggestion she would have carried on to Rio if asked - which contradicts everything she has said about the experience of London and the unbearable pressure she could barely cope with.

Pendleton has always had an issue with Becky.
That's all I'm saying.

mm1

No love for Boardman. Knows his stuff and has a dry and incisive wit. I hope that Cookson was listening when Boardman said that the Kilo and Madison belong in the 'Lympics. Used to find Jonathan Edwards irritating, now his puppyish enthusiasm has grown on me a bit, I suppose having a non cycling "personality" maybe adds some weight to the coverage. Pendleton looks terrified to be in front of the camera.

DeVlaeminck

argyllflyer wrote:

Gazzetta67 wrote:

Off subject - BBC's Cycling man in the "know" Matt Slater ? maybe both he and Carlton Kirby should sit a cycling proficiency type test for alleged journo's :idea:

Though i feel Kirby gets better every season - especially now that he commentates on virtually every big race for someone or other - and is entertaining to listen to.

I popped on Paris-Roubaix from 2010 the other week and was quickly reminded of the sneering superficial tone of his predecessor who to be fair I did miss at first. But no longer.

I don't absolutely hate Kirby - his style can suit a long quiet day in a stage race but when the action starts he becomes more annoying and at those times I still miss Harmon's commentary - for me Harmon and Kelly are a long way ahead of Kirby's 100mph jabbering from 40k out and Matt Stephens just seems to be trying too hard to be professional and ending up a little dull. Even my non-cyclist 13 year old daughter said how dull he was this morning when I was watching Andalucia though perhaps he'd make a better commentator than pundit.

As I suspect nobody will touch Harmon with a bargepole now and with Phil Liggett past his sell by date there is definitely a gap in the market for someone to become the iconic commentator for the sport in the UK for the next few decades.

As for the original topic of conversation - I don't mind the BBC team too much but they have it all on to make track cycling interesting.

yorkshireraw

Rob Hatch is (for my viewing taste anyway) the best of the bunch at present. Can't stand Kirby - he just goes mental at the wrong times and misses half of what's really happening. Doesn't seem close enough to the sport either as the next day he's off commentating on Snooker or something else - seems to be the favoured Eurosport lead for some reason.
I think Matt Stephens is pretty good in terms of actually filling in the quiet bits but again it's about personal taste. Dan Lloyd also and both those guys are clearly quite close to the sport still and understand what it's like in the bunch.
Declan Quiqly is decent but his accent puts some off I think.

ugo.santalucia

oldwelshman wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

The point is there was a race for the medal they completely disregarded, looking at Britan that had two I said two points, while France had 15 and Italy 13 or so. Madison is not obvious and requires good commentary, the BBC one was dreadful...

I've never watched the Madison before and I followed it perfectly. You're just pi55ed that France beat Italy by a point

I actually think the BBC staff at this worlds is unprepared... they have ran out of things to say basically.

Previously the women team pursuit final: they tried to keep the excitement going "can they pull it back?" when it was obvious from the second lap that Australia was going to thrash them and at the end won by nearly 3 seconds... :roll:

Ugo do you know anything about track cycling?
If you did, then you would realise that even though the GB team only had 2 points, at that point in the race they were still in gold medal position as they were a lap up. In the Maddison it does not matter if a team had 0 points but were 1 lap up on a team with 100 points, the team a lap up wins, so they were correctly commentating on the GB team trying to get back to the front group with the Aussies.
As for the pursuit, you clearly have no idea about pursuiting and pacing If you look at the mens final Bobridge did same as he did for the hour record attempt, went to fast and blew. The GB ladies were riding to their schedule. It is better to ride to a schedule as the coach knows the best schedule for the riders as they will have tried many things, faster start different order of riders, gears, when to change etc The GB ride was fast just the Aussies were faster. It is a new event so can expect rides like this for a while.

But that's my point, it wasn't very cclear at all... eventually I got the lap thing... but they were caught and passed and still the commentators were going on about GB and Australia, which at that point were clearly out of contention. Besides, Madison is not the most obvious discipline on the track and the commentators should really make an effort to make things clear for someone who just sees a lot of sprinting and chasing.
I suspect very few in the audience fully get how Madison works and I am not one of them.

As for the pursuit, in a team affort is less likely to see a complete reversal for obvious reasons. It was clear the Auzzies had a better team and were faster... at one point the GB were down to three, how on earth could they do better than a team of four?... The commentary was simply delusional... instead of celebrating the AU team that was flying at world record pace, they kept going on about the chances of GB to recover when they were already nearly 2 seconds down and clearly all over the place...

DeVlaeminck

Ah yes Dan Lloyd - forgot about him - definitely shows promise. As far as Stephens goes - I want to like him, he seems a decent type, I can imagine he's quite funny in real life, I just think he comes across like he's trying too hard to be professional and maybe holding a bit of his natural personality back a bit. That's what I like about Kelly - he gives the impression he's the same on air as he would be talking in a cafe. I also like Brian Smith for the same reason.

As you say though it is a matter of taste and it's one of those jobs where the trick is to make something quite difficult seem very easy.

deejay

YorkshireRaw wrote:

I think Matt Stephens is pretty good

Until he calls Froome the Englishman in Saturday's Ruta del Sol.

yorkshireraw

deejay wrote:

YorkshireRaw wrote:

I think Matt Stephens is pretty good

Until he calls Froome the Englishman in Saturday's Ruta del Sol.

Well if Froome is British then by definition he needs to be one of English, Scottish, Northern Irish or Welsh does he not? ;-) If he'd done the Commonwealth Games who would he have ridden for - can't still be Kenya!

takethehighroad

YorkshireRaw wrote:

Rob Hatch is (for my viewing taste anyway) the best of the bunch at present. Can't stand Kirby - he just goes mental at the wrong times and misses half of what's really happening. Doesn't seem close enough to the sport either as the next day he's off commentating on Snooker or something else - seems to be the favoured Eurosport lead for some reason.
I think Matt Stephens is pretty good in terms of actually filling in the quiet bits but again it's about personal taste. Dan Lloyd also and both those guys are clearly quite close to the sport still and understand what it's like in the bunch.
Declan Quiqly is decent but his accent puts some off I think.

I think this is a good summary, although Kirby is getting better at rider recognition as he does more races (also helps when he knows the result like yesterday haha)

RichN95.

YorkshireRaw wrote:

deejay wrote:

YorkshireRaw wrote:

I think Matt Stephens is pretty good

Until he calls Froome the Englishman in Saturday's Ruta del Sol.

Well if Froome is British then by definition he needs to be one of English, Scottish, Northern Irish or Welsh does he not? ;-) If he'd done the Commonwealth Games who would he have ridden for - can't still be Kenya!

He rode for England at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. His roots are in Gloucestershire. (His dad played hockey for the England junior team)

yorkshireraw

Thanks Rich, hadn't clocked that ref. Froome in 2010. Knew he'd done the MTB for Kenya in '06 I think?

RichN95.

YorkshireRaw wrote:

Thanks Rich, hadn't clocked that ref. Froome in 2010. Knew he'd done the MTB for Kenya in '06 I think?

He did the road race and TT for Kenya in 2006 and also the MTB, somewhat against his will - he'd never done a proper MTB race before.

deejay

YorkshireRaw wrote:

Well if Froome is British then by definition he needs to be one of English, Scottish, Northern Irish or Welsh does he not? ;-) If he'd done the Commonwealth Games who would he have ridden for - can't still be Kenya!

I sit on buses and trains and listen to British people speaking but I cannot understand a word.