Any more televised cycling races?

[El Pistolero]

I dont know. England is probably the country most hostile to road cycling in the whole world. And yet British Eurosport show absolutely everything. Their comentators spend more time away from home than the cyclists. They have 4 main commentators, and 4 backup ones just in case, and while i have minor problems with them (namely claiming conti lost the tour when he lost 15 secs to menchov/ samu) they are it appears better than this phil and paul combo we keep hearing about every race thread. Sure, they arent eddy mercx, but who the f**k is, besides kelly has had some achievments too.

Just about the only event they didnt have this year was the tour down under (big deal) but now it appears they bought that for next year as well.

They even have nothing races like the tour of oman, tour of quatar, tour of turkey.

And their tdf coverage, oh madone , it is eurosports signature event. They have adverts for it all year round. They show live the route unveiling, the team presentations, show half the stages from the roll out, going live at 9 am, the others from the 150k to go mark, have commentators based in paris, in london, at the finish, at the start, along the route.

If cycling is your religion, eurosport is the highest altar ( may be a bit dramatic, but its the closest im ever going to get to being in a church)

Hey, I like the Tour of Qatar

Usually has some pretty decent cyclists in it like Boonen, Cavendish, Cancellara, Haussler and Tyler Farrar.

Oh well, all I need is the big classics, some stage races and the Grand Tours and I wont complain

edit: And the world championship of course.

 

[Mellow Velo]

UK Eurosport have pulled some rabbits out of the hat, this year, that's for sure.
Pais Vasco and Romandie back, plus Switzerland's first ever appearance.
Not available to other ESports, either, so chapeau.

However, they have a fair way to go to compete with Sporza. Their racing calander is second to none.

Right: Live televised races coming up besides the PT events on Eurosport include:
4th-15th August: RTP bring you the all singing and dancing Volta a Portugal.
4 hours each day of the longest, non-GT European stage race.
Unfortunately, only the last 90 minutes is the race, the rest is......singing and dancing in the sun.

17th-19th-21st RAI's live triple wammy of the big Italian semi classics.
Tre Valli Varesine kicks it off and it's a beaut. Last year they had 2 hours+
The Coppas Agostini and Bernocchi then follow.

Other possibles include the 2HC Vuelta a Burgos. A hot and tough Vuelta warm up.

Maybe the Dutch might offer up the inspiringly named: Dutch Food Valley Classic on August 13th.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

sporza's coverage has really gotten downhil in this year. they cut a number of races like romandy and dauphinee I think.

Overall if you have satelite tv in europe, you have everything basically. you have rtbf, which shows wallonish races as well as some flemish, flemish races, dutch races like dutch food classic and other boring **** :L you have bask tv which shows any bask races. different spanish stations from different regions all show their local vuelta's like vuelta asturias, clasico alcobendas others, rtpi which shows volta portugal live(which is an amazing tour!!) eurosport, which shows everything from qatar to turkey to the gt's. of course all the pt races on different channels, all gt's. basically anything that gets any tv coverage you can see.

 

[reubenr]

Universal Sports is great...if you have it.

Versus did the Tour de France a great injustice, too many one sided commentators.

Jawohl! Universal Sports is such an up tick from Versus that you might need oxygen. Versus just ruins everything. It is biased, and for the most part, Liggett and Sherwen just read from a travel book. They don't know where anybody is on the course, except for Lance, who may be actually so far back that he's in a different race. That doesn't matter to Liggett and Sherwen. They just go on talking to themselves, thinking that they are making sense, when they are pretty much being laughed at by the cycling world. I think Liggett's teeth fell out one day, but I can't be sure. I'm kind of hoping that Versus may not broadcast the TDF next year because Lance is pretty much dead here and will be dying even faster by this time next year. If it wasn't for sheer greed, I don't think we would have seen Lance, Radio Schack, Bruyneel, Liggett or Sherwen. They are all just trying to suck up what's left. Please, can't we move on from these idiots. Go, Universal Sports.