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Eurosport and the Giro

shoppo33shoppo33 Posts: 88
edited April 2009 in Pro race
Finally gave in and splashed out a proportion of my monthly wage for sky sports and eurosport, hate the idea of my hard earned cash going to Murdoch but there is just no way I can miss he Ash's, Lions tour, world T20 and the Giro.
However any idea on what eurosports coverage of the Giro will be like? Will every stage be covered?

Can'tfind any info on there web page,am Igoing to be dissapointed as a lot of fans seem to winge about ping pong etc interrupting.

Posts

  • thomasmcthomasmc Posts: 822
    Not sure if ping pong is the problem but I thought I saw that coverage of Liege Bastogne Liege is not starting until 5pm this Sunday!
  • Philip SPhilip S Posts: 398
    LBL is live on Eurosport HD, with highlights being shown on British Eurosport at 5pm. There must be a really important snooker match on on Sunday afternoon...

    I wouldn't mind if I could get Eurosport HD - in fact I would be delighted and they clearly recognise that cycling really benefits from HD - but as far as I know it's only available on Sky, and I've got Virgin cable and have no prospect (or wish) to get a Sky dish...
  • ACMadoneACMadone Posts: 300
    thomasmc wrote:
    Not sure if ping pong is the problem but I thought I saw that coverage of Liege Bastogne Liege is not starting until 5pm this Sunday!

    It's usually Super Chav Bikes that cause the cycling to move, but SNOOKER!! WTF
  • iainf72iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    Philip S wrote:

    I wouldn't mind if I could get Eurosport HD - in fact I would be delighted and they clearly recognise that cycling really benefits from HD - but as far as I know it's only available on Sky, and I've got Virgin cable and have no prospect (or wish) to get a Sky dish...

    It's not in HD on Sunday. But Eurosport HD seems to follow the ES International programming, not ES UK.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • blazing_saddlesblazing_saddles Posts: 16,627
    Expect the same mucking around from Brit ES, every weekend of the Giro, especially Sundays.
    The biggest problem, however, will be the annual one. That of girlie clay court tennis. By the nature of the courts, some matches run on forever, often cutting up to an hour of the scheduled Giro coverage.
    Then, there's that final weekend clash with Roland Garros.

    My advice would have been to shell out on a cheapish digital sat reveiver and a motorised dish.
    It's a one off payment (£250ish) and providing you can put up with foreign commentary, opens up a lot of cycling.
    RAI's Italian coverage is excellent. It's their race, after all. Extra coverage of the mountains, often not on ES, plus each morning a show from the depart town.
    Also German Eurosport, which has live LBL, is free. :wink:
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • Philip SPhilip S Posts: 398
    iainf72 wrote:
    It's not in HD on Sunday. But Eurosport HD seems to follow the ES International programming, not ES UK.
    Ah, so it's normal definition, but hosted on ES HD? That makes sense, although still irritating for us without HD-access.

    I'll keep an eye on Steephill.tv - that's usually a good source for live streams.
  • KléberKléber Posts: 6,842
    See http://www.cyclingfans.com/ for coverage of streams. It's not the same as watching the TV because the stream/image size can be restricted but you get a breadth of coverage and it's all free if you have a broadband connection.

    Bennati's out, so you can tune into several Cav wins.
  • StarwaspStarwasp Posts: 59
    If you are recording the coverage, just make sure you record the show after the cycling, as Sky+ has a nasty habit of recording to time, and so finishing the recording before the end of a race.

    I had a lucky escape with the Amstel Gold this last weekend. Having set both the race and the following programme to record, I then deleted the following programme by mistake before watching, and then had to sit through the whole of the Amstel Gold recording knowing that:

    a) It had started late so the coverage would most likely end before the end of the race
    b) the point the recording stopped would be a bit random

    I was getting increasingly nervous as each kilo passed by, but as it happened, the recording stopped just as Schleck made it over the line in second place much to my relief and my wife's amusement!
  • mangamanmangaman Posts: 704
    I second all the above

    I Sky+ the program before and the 2 afterwards (call me paranoid) but Eurosport suddenly can show more or less of the race than they advertise

    The clashes with the tennis are annoying but generally I find the Giro coverage pretty good especially during the "Queen" stages"

    It's always amazed me what censored they show on Eurosport as you sit around waiting for the cycling

    Not just live sport, but endless censored and unfunny clip shows of morbikes crashing and people falling off skis (I think it's called WATTS - i call it "what the f*ck?" )

    I always imagine the only viewers are about 12 German teenagers
  • dave milnedave milne Posts: 703
    good old eurosport, my wife's always asking me why are you recording live ski jumping and so on. for the final time trial in last year's giro I had to wait for 30 minutes whilst they played som ecompilation of crashes and then cut the coverage to half an hour. Truly budget channel but what other option is there?
  • mgcycleguymgcycleguy Posts: 292
    To be fair they have showed a fair bit this year though... I'll admit im lucky to have an HD box, and i have to say cycling really really benifits from the high quality images (you can see the suffering on their faces on the hills !) .... looking forward to the Giro, some cool Italian backdrops !
  • allactionallaction Posts: 209
    Must confess that I have enjoyed watching the classics on Eurosport this year. Generally there coverage is pretty good. I do hope that Sky will bring there superb programming to the table some day, especially now they are actually going to be backing a team.

    As has been said Eurosport basically pick up what no one else wants as they have a small budget, that's why they have some bizarre sports on there!
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