English-speaking cycling announcers

[the vagabond]

What is it about English-speaking bike racing announcers? I won't mention names, but the vet Brits who cover the T de C are bad despite (or because of?) their long experience, and getting worse every year. But even they are somewhat tolerable compared to the suicide-inducing Irish drone of Kelly over at fromsport with the Giro.

The good news is that even though I generally have to watch the T de C with the sound off at least with the Giro I can watch it in Italian, and my Italian is improving rapidly and the race just makes a lot more sense than it does in English. I'm beginning to believe that bike racing just doesn't work in English, probably like baseball is absurd in Dutch. Bike racing really only makes sense in French or Italian.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Magnus Backstedt is one of the 'Brits' covering the ToC. I wouldn't say he's been in the commentary booth for that long, or that he's British.

Kelly is a really good man for insight and detail, but he will miss things by starting an 873-part run-on sentence and talking all over something significant happening. It's actually best when he's in a bad mood.

One of my favourite exchanges was one where Harmon was asking why Kelly thought Cunego had never lived up to the promise he'd shown in 2004. Kelly said "it was another era of cycling then". Harmon then tried to push him on this, on what was meant, whether there was any other option for Cunego, and Kelly simply repeated, much more firmly, "it was another era of cycling then". It was something that made his viewpoint perfectly clear without ever having to say anything.

David Harmon is usually pretty good, but when Wiggins and/or Evans are up at the front he'll get a bit excitable.

All of the Eurosport teams are hundreds of times better than Sherwen and Liggett, and the BBC team that covered the Worlds were dreadful too - failing to recognise riders even with their numbers in plain sight, calling Joaquím Rodríguez a sprinter, and so on.

 

[LugHugger]

Backstedt has been one of the few commentators worth listening to, largely because he is not judgemental and is still able to relate to performances based on the fact that they are largely his peers.

On the other hand, the rest of the English speaking commentators are sycophantic Armstrongites who have ZERO journalistic integrity.

 

[The Barb]

Here in New Zealand what little cycling coverage we get is predominantly Ligget and Sherwin, who are just horrible. Matt Keenan is totally at the other end of the spectrum when we have him - that is, the best sports broadcaster I've heard.

 

[luckyboy]

Eurosport's guys are always good - Magnus, Harmon, Kelly, the other guys who pop up now and then..

Don't particularly like how they kind of sweep away doping talk - "he's had troubles in the past" etc..

 

[Ferminal]

Don't particularly like how they kind of sweep away doping talk - "he's had troubles in the past" etc..

Except when it's Vino

 

[movingtarget]

Announcers

I don't mind Kelly and Harmon. It's hard to be interesting over so many hours and Kelly has to answer the sometimes silly questions he is asked.

 

[badboyberty]

The good news is that even though I generally have to watch the T de C with the sound off at least with the Giro I can watch it in Italian, and my Italian is improving rapidly and the race just makes a lot more sense than it does in English. I'm beginning to believe that bike racing just doesn't work in English, probably like baseball is absurd in Dutch. Bike racing really only makes sense in French or Italian.

I find Classics are best in Flemish and GT's are best in Italian or Spanish. I love it, all I need is the riders' names and time gaps, everything else is just filler and fluff so it might as well be in Double-Dutch (or Flemish as the case might be).

And an easy cure for the ToC commentary, I just refuse to watch it. I know it means missing on some Sagan moments but I'm suspecting we'll have a lot of those in the future.

 

[thrawn]

Harmon has been woeful with identifying riders at this giro, particularly yesterday...

 

[laziali]

Here in New Zealand what little cycling coverage we get is predominantly Ligget and Sherwin, who are just horrible. Matt Keenan is totally at the other end of the spectrum when we have him - that is, the best sports broadcaster I've heard.

Matt Keenan is great - truly encyclopaedic knowledge.

 

[RedheadDane]

Well... I kinda liked the English commentating I got for ToC 6th stage. (from this homepage with the tracker) Of course Italian or French would make no sense for me at all because... I don't speak those languages. (I sometimes see the end of a race with some odd language speaker on... but in those cases I guess you don't really need to know what they're saying...)
And it's always funny to hear non-Danish people try to pronounce "Sørensen"

 

[valentius borealis]

And it's always funny to hear non-Danish people try to pronounce "Sørensen"

It's the same with Jorgensen.

Australians on this board would be familiar with the Rugby League commentator Ray Warren who also commentates on the swimming. He pronounced "Andkjær" as Ank-i-jar.

 

[The Falcon]

I'm completely jack of the Sherwen & Liggett show, it truly gets worse each year as Liggett gets more senile and Sherwen reaches for his grab bag of cliches and unwarranted superlatives. I have had a break from these clowns by watching Eurosport, but this morning i flicked over to the Free to Air SBS2 coverage of the ToC and was cursing the TV within a few minutes.

Harmon on Eurosport has grown on me, he is an affable chap but generally has no clue whats going on.....Kelly is mumbling grouch who says little, but does know whats going on. What a combo! I also love how Kelly never goes near drug issues....which is unsurprising as they were roided to the gills in his day.

I will echo other comments on Matt Keenan though....I really enjoy listening to him.....his delivery is getting better each year. He loves the sport, has done his homework and isn't a dope. Surely he has a big future

 

[El Imbatido]

I too cannot stand Liggett and Sherwen, it drives me up the wall in a matter of minutes. Harmon and Kelly and much, much better. Harmon is good at identifying riders from just seeing the arses and is i think whilst this maybe against the general consenus of this forum, that Harmon is actually really knowledgable, that combined with Sean kelly's knowledge of the game and how it works is the combo i prefer.

Matt Keenan is very good from what i heard last year at the TdF as SBS used him for an hour whilst they were checking out Liggett and Sherwen from the retirement home. But he needs an offsider, maybe he should be paired with Magnus??? That could be a good combo.

I have also seen some cycling on Australian channel called 'OneHD'. It is an all sports channel and they showed Tour de Romandie this year and the commentators were Rob Hatch and Johnathon Harris-Bass. They were quite good if not a little dull but i had never heard of them before? Does anybody know who they usually commentate for?

 

[Christian]

And it's always funny to hear non-Danish people try to pronounce "Sørensen"

... and French speakers pronouncing Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Jens Voigt ...

... German speakers pronouncing just about any Italian or French name ...

etc., etc.

 

[SpartacusRox]

Personally I get a bit of a laugh out of Phil and Paul, its entertainment while watching the boring stages of the race. Phil's eccentricities don't really bother me, why stress over them.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

I've watched a lot of the British Eurosport commentators. None of the lead commentators are that great because none of them are very accurate - not easy, I know, to identify who's who in a peloton of 200 riders but when it's your job.... Harmon will guess whereas Dave Duffield used to stay non-specific but I like both of them in terms of talking through a stage and building up excitement. Carlton Kirby gets up my nose and Mike Smith was truly dreadful but fortunately they seem to have kept him on the snooker for the past year.

The ex-pro "analysts" (who seem spend most of their time politely correcting the lead commentators) are better. Backstedt is superb I think - I guess it helps that he's only recently retired so he knows what's going on. Brian Smith (the Scottish ex-Motorola guy) is very good. Brian Robinson is good - even though he rode ages ago he still keeps up to date. Kelly would get a lot more criticism I think if he wasn't such a legend - just wish he would lighten up a bit and do a bit more homework

 

[Slumdog-Zomergem]

Sean Kelly you should worry did you hear the phonecall to Sean Yates

 

[progressor]

I personally think Sherwen is far worse than liggett.That's not saying liggett is good - but I think Sherwin is the real shocker.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Harmon is a terrible commentator. He is lazy and woefully underprepared - he seems to show no desire whatsoever to do any work or preparation before commentating. It would also help if he wasn't quite so xenophobic.

He seems to think that we are only ever interested in english speaking riders - every english-speaking rider is a 'wonderful chap, great to talk to'. He spends more time saying hello to his mates over email than in telling us what is happening.

His man-crush on Australian riders especially Cadel Evans and Richie Porte this Giro has been especially vomit-inducing. To show just how matey he is with them - English-speakers are always on first name terms - Cadel, Richie, Lance, Levi etc, dirty foreigners always introduced by their surnames.

Harmon has been watching too much football on ITV and thinks that 'emotion' is a better substitute than calling the race. He has a great resource and expertise in Kelly, but constantly refuses to use him.

Harmon's attitude towards Vino during and after LBL was at best hypocritical and at worst racist, given his normal attitude towards dopers.

 

[craig1985]

Harmon has been woeful with identifying riders at this giro, particularly yesterday...

When Petrov won the stage the other day he thought it was Giampaolo Caruso.

They sure look the same

 

[El Imbatido]

When Petrov won the stage the other day he thought it was Giampaolo Caruso.

They sure look the same

And to be fair to him, they gave it as Caruso in the break and not Petrov. Also i think someone mentioned it in the thread at the time but the German(?) Eurosport also thought it was Caruso.

Although i do agree that Harmon seems to have a man-crush on certain riders, but atleast he doesn't sound like he is gonna jizz himself when he talks about them though

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

El Imbatido - Harmon was onto about his second box of kleenex when Matt 'great guy, nicest person you could meet' Lloyd was winning and I thought he was going to make a mess over Kelly when Evans won the other day.

 

[Ferminal]

Harmon is a terrible commentator. He is lazy and woefully underprepared - he seems to show no desire whatsoever to do any work or preparation before commentating. It would also help if he wasn't quite so xenophobic.

He seems to think that we are only ever interested in english speaking riders - every english-speaking rider is a 'wonderful chap, great to talk to'. He spends more time saying hello to his mates over email than in telling us what is happening.

His man-crush on Australian riders especially Cadel Evans and Richie Porte this Giro has been especially vomit-inducing. To show just how matey he is with them - English-speakers are always on first name terms - Cadel, Richie, Lance, Levi etc, dirty foreigners always introduced by their surnames.

Harmon has been watching too much football on ITV and thinks that 'emotion' is a better substitute than calling the race. He has a great resource and expertise in Kelly, but constantly refuses to use him.

Harmon's attitude towards Vino during and after LBL was at best hypocritical and at worst racist, given his normal attitude towards dopers.

No different to P&P, they are all way more interested in Brits/Aussies/Yanks than non-Anglos. Keenan was a disgrace last year at the worlds but is otherwise brilliant.

Harmon and Magnus in Tour of Turkey was probably the best combination this year.

 

[El Imbatido]

El Imbatido - Harmon was onto about his second box of kleenex when Matt 'great guy, nicest person you could meet' Lloyd was winning and I thought he was going to make a mess over Kelly when Evans won the other day.

I haven't watched that stage yet, thanks for the heads up