Eurosport commentary

[woodenswan]

great job by Rob Hatch and Brian Smith! especially, after 9 days of blunders and abysmal commentary by Quigley and Sean. big 'em up!

 

[argyllflyer]

I'd say today was perhaps the worst yet from DQ and SK. Though the spot when they were on air without knowing at least raised a smile with Kelly's "Lampre Merida... what the ****?" slip. "Yeah, get it right," replied DQ.

 

[deValtos]

Brajkovic on twitter "I dont wanna be disrespectful, but as an int tv commentator, you cannot only talk about ur favorite rider...insane"

I don't know which commentators he's talking about though, who does he watch ?

 

[the asian]

Brajkovic on twitter "I dont wanna be disrespectful, but as an int tv commentator, you cannot only talk about ur favorite rider...insane"

I don't know which commentators he's talking about though, who does he watch ?

Declan Quigley. It's obvious.

 

[The Hitch]

Declan Quigley. It's obvious.

Hence why it was posted in this thread i guess

 

[the asian]

Hence why it was posted in this thread i guess

Do you know Quigley's Twitter handle? (Never mind, found it)

 

[argyllflyer]

Good to hear Jonathan Harris-Bass on Eurosport again, doing Tour of Norway. Slightly unrelated but DQ's stint on the giro has freed up a mic for Hugh Porter to do the Tour Series on ITV4.

 

[BrentonOfTheNorth]

It seemed like Quigley was suggesting today (stage 12) that the finishing times are clocked at 3km to go rather than at the finish line. I know crashes within 3km to go are sometimes nullified from GC times but that's different.

I considered it bad quality commentating to speak incorrectly about race profiles in earlier stages of the race. Hearing "it levels off near the top" when the last few km of a climb are the steepest just seems incompetent. Maybe it's just an inexperience thing, being a little overwhelmed and mixing up such details. It just seems so easy to spend a few seconds looking at the profile.

 

[Netserk]

He was correct. The finishing times was clocked with 3km to go today.

 

[staubsauger]

Don't worry pal's your favourite cycling commentators good old Phil & Paul will be back soon enough.

 

[argyllflyer]

Don't worry pal's your favourite cycling commentators good old Phil & Paul will be back soon enough.

Thankfully not on Eurosport!

 

[eljimberino]

I think they are ok.

Good now Wiggo is out of the picture.

 

[del1962]

I prefer Harmon to Quigley.

 

[Normandy]

great job by Rob Hatch and Brian Smith! especially, after 9 days of blunders and abysmal commentary by Quigley and Sean. big 'em up!

I cannot believe the poor quality of commentary on British Eurosport at the moment particularly the Tour of California. The Tour of Norway is not much better but at least Magnus Backstedt is there to correct the mistakes.

Do the Eurosport commentators do any homework before races, considering its their full time job? As a viewer it would be nice occasionally to learn something new about the race or riders from the commentators. Instead, all they waffle on about is the British riders and get the facts wrong about any other riders.

 

[Cycle Chic]

frustration

I cannot believe the poor quality of commentary on British Eurosport at the moment particularly the Tour of California. The Tour of Norway is not much better but at least Magnus Backstedt is there to correct the mistakes.

Do the Eurosport commentators do any homework before races, considering its their full time job? As a viewer it would be nice occasionally to learn something new about the race or riders from the commentators. Instead, all they waffle on about is the British riders and get the facts wrong about any other riders.

ahhh yes welcome to my thread
Quigley is doing a stellar job with Sean there to talk to. Kelly has done more talking during this Giro than he has for the past 20 years to Harmon.

 

[The Principal Sheep]

ahhh yes welcome to my thread
Quigley is doing a stellar job with Sean there to talk to. Kelly has done more talking during this Giro than he has for the past 20 years to Harmon.

This is true, there are times with Harmon where I think Sean is as bored with him as the rest of us. Been good to hear Kelly talk with some enthusiasm and a bit of banter even if he does make mistakes sometimes (they all do).

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Quigleys vocabulary is limited now that Mr. Wiggins has withdrawn.

 

[the asian]

Quigleys vocabulary is limited now that Mr. Wiggins has withdrawn.

He's a nice man. he at least responded to my Tweet.

 

[staubsauger]

I cannot believe the poor quality of commentary on British Eurosport at the moment particularly the Tour of California. The Tour of Norway is not much better but at least Magnus Backstedt is there to correct the mistakes.

Do the Eurosport commentators do any homework before races, considering its their full time job? As a viewer it would be nice occasionally to learn something new about the race or riders from the commentators. Instead, all they waffle on about is the British riders and get the facts wrong about any other riders.

I can just speak for the German ones. Jansch, altough he is a bit absentminded as main-comentator, definitely does. He's a real fairy tale uncle and has a story about nearly every rider and every team. In the past when he was the co-commentator of Migels, he always knew where some rider was training and what's his family background etc. He is/was also often in touch with other professionals, directeur sportifs to get some information via SMS etc. That's why I always really liked him. Earlier on he was also very good in spotting riders. But know he has got some problems to identify the jerseys, but he's in his mid 60's now. So that can happen, nothing to blame him for. He has some problems with French & Spanish names, but he always tries to learn them. He's very good in pronouncing Dutch and East-European names. I remember one day after a race interview from Koos Moerenhout at the Eneco Tour, he was giving a very good summary of what Koos was telling in Dutch. He closed it with his excuse that he can't speak Dutch at all, but he's able to affilate most of the things due to his knowledge of other languages.

Also Leclerq appears to give thoughts about the races he is co-commentating. He definitely has a great knowleadge about cycling. He also knows very much about attractions next to the road. For example when Paris - Nice was ongoing he was refering to the American French clothing manufacturer Dupont if me memory is correct, which invited these synthetic rubber clothes used by the French Ski team. Also he seems to be interested in art and culture, so he is musing about that as well. He definately does research before the races.

Migels most of the time isn't the man for the background information. His esponsibility is more the entertaining commentary about what's going on in the race. But he still knows most of the riders and their qualities, although he makes some mistakes sometimes. He's very good in spotting riders and knows the jerseys most of the time.

Leinauer has not much knowledge. He is more a fanboy. But he is engrossed in the races most of the time.

 

[argyllflyer]

Well, that was a very difficult day for DQ and SK in terms of keeping the conversation going, but yet again DQ falls short with rider identification when the live footage kicked off at the top of the climb. Samtambrogio is pretty distinctive looking "Could it possibly be Di Luca?", as is Betancur's riding style, even in the distance "it looks like one of the AG2R riders is trying to chase him down, it could well be the Colombian Betancur" "Could it have been Betancur, could it have been Pozzovivo?" and neither were identified by him until he could see a number ("it's not Di Luca...," Sean stepped in with the name) for MS, and when he saw Pozzovivo for Betancur. The past 14 days have been an ongoing nightmare for him.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

Well, that was a very difficult day for DQ and SK in terms of keeping the conversation going, but yet again DQ falls short with rider identification when the live footage kicked off at the top of the climb. Samtambrogio is pretty distinctive looking "Could it possibly be Di Luca?", as it Betancur's riding style, even in the distance "it looks like one of the AG2R riders is trying to chase him down, it could well be the Colombian Betancur" "Could it have been Betancur, could it have been Pozzovivo?" and neither were identified by him until he could see a number ("it's not Di Luca...," Sean stepped in with the name) for MS, and when he saw Pozzovivo for Betancur. The past 14 days have been an ongoing nightmare for him.

There was no need for him to be able to identify Santambrogio anyway, if a Vini Fantini rider is there at the finish on a stage like that then it's obvious who it's going to be. Shocking stuff.

 

[TourOfTexas]

I doubt their badness at rider ID bothers the hard core fan who can ID the riders himself and figure out what's going on. It reminds me of when I was a boy watching F1 with my dad. He was always correcting the announcers and having great fun doing it.

 

[argyllflyer]

I doubt their badness at rider ID bothers the hard core fan who can ID the riders himself and figure out what's going on. It reminds me of when I was a boy watching F1 with my dad. He was always correcting the announcers and having great fun doing it.

I'm sorry, but I expect someone who's being paid to talk about the race to know more than me. I buy their (Eurosport's) coverage in the first place!

 

[thehog]

Well, that was a very difficult day for DQ and SK in terms of keeping the conversation going, but yet again DQ falls short with rider identification when the live footage kicked off at the top of the climb. Samtambrogio is pretty distinctive looking "Could it possibly be Di Luca?", as is Betancur's riding style, even in the distance "it looks like one of the AG2R riders is trying to chase him down, it could well be the Colombian Betancur" "Could it have been Betancur, could it have been Pozzovivo?" and neither were identified by him until he could see a number ("it's not Di Luca...," Sean stepped in with the name) for MS, and when he saw Pozzovivo for Betancur. The past 14 days have been an ongoing nightmare for him.

How is DK going without Wiggins?

Is he still saying he's in control?

 

[JRanton]

If DQ was a horse, he'd have been shot somewhere around stage 5.