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Eurosport commentary

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Re: Re:

Alberto Fishwick said:
argyllflyer said:
They do use their online space - watching Frankfurt just now and they had the pics form TdY on yesterday from well before they went live - not sure if whole stage but certainly with 120km to go.

Would also say 4 Days.. doesn't start til the 9th - what planner are you looking at? I can't find schedules any more than a week in advance? It won't show on the Sky planner for example until the afternoon of the 2nd - if they're showing it.

Virgin planner goes out two weeks. It does change but I can't see a whole race being shunted in.

It's now in the 'live events' schedule, I assume to be shown online on the Eurosport Player.
 
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Re:

tobydawq said:
Sure, and if that was all he commented on, it would be fine.

For me, he seems to be extremely un-knowledgeable on the European cycling scene which he spends the most time commenting (you know, for a guy who has it as his area of expertise), he has a very bad voice, he is not funny to listen to in any sense and is constantly misreading races and making horrendous and mind-bogglingly stupid predictions.

And you're the first person I have ever heard defending him, but I guess you don't really dislike anybody, so I guess that shouldn't be that big a surprise :)

100% Agree
 
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Re:

Cycle Chic said:
What can I say ?!! Rob Hatch and Sean for the 3 weeks - bliss....and not a Kirby voice in 'sight'

Looking forward to getting home now...especially as I can fast forward so don't have to listen to the pretty-boy triple jumper!! He was bad enough pouting away at the athletics but at least he knew a bit about that.
 
Re:

tobydawq said:
So far I have seen all of Laura Meseguer, Ashley House and Juan Antonio Flecha on the transmission...

You have to guard yourself against fake news, I guess.

It was on Eurosport's own news release not long after the reports surfaced that they were all being used, albeit in Flecha and House's case, in reduced roles.

http://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/giro-d-italia/2017/jonathan-edwards-to-front-eurosports-live-giro-ditalia-and-tour-de-france-coverage_sto6142053/story.shtml

As the ‘Home of Cycling’, Eurosport is working with the biggest names in the sport for analysis and insight. These include 21-time Grand Tour stage winner Sean Kelly, former Team Sky rider Juan Antonio Flecha and former British road race champions Brian Smith, Rob Hayles and Matt Stephens. They will work alongside reporters Ashley House and Laura Meseguer conducting rider interviews before and after each stage.
 
Re: Re:

argyllflyer said:
Alberto Fishwick said:
argyllflyer said:
They do use their online space - watching Frankfurt just now and they had the pics form TdY on yesterday from well before they went live - not sure if whole stage but certainly with 120km to go.

Would also say 4 Days.. doesn't start til the 9th - what planner are you looking at? I can't find schedules any more than a week in advance? It won't show on the Sky planner for example until the afternoon of the 2nd - if they're showing it.

Virgin planner goes out two weeks. It does change but I can't see a whole race being shunted in.

It's now in the 'live events' schedule, I assume to be shown online on the Eurosport Player.

Yep, it's on the Player listings but no way to record and watch later. :(
 
Re: Re:

Alberto Fishwick said:
argyllflyer said:
Alberto Fishwick said:
argyllflyer said:
They do use their online space - watching Frankfurt just now and they had the pics form TdY on yesterday from well before they went live - not sure if whole stage but certainly with 120km to go.

Would also say 4 Days.. doesn't start til the 9th - what planner are you looking at? I can't find schedules any more than a week in advance? It won't show on the Sky planner for example until the afternoon of the 2nd - if they're showing it.

Virgin planner goes out two weeks. It does change but I can't see a whole race being shunted in.

It's now in the 'live events' schedule, I assume to be shown online on the Eurosport Player.

Yep, it's on the Player listings but no way to record and watch later. :(

Might be under the Videos section on Player though later on? A bit hit and miss though what they put up.

On Jonathan Edwards - he's just said that Thomas was top 10 but focusing on 'the GQ'...
 
Not loving Mr Edwards so far, I'm afraid.

Sad but not surprised to report that CK has mentioned on Twitter that he expects to be doing the Tour for Eurosport. At least ITV4 have indicated that they will also be taking up the extended coverage available this year so there is an alternative. Shame their ad breaks are so long and I do like listening to King Kelly.
 
Re:

Alberto Fishwick said:
Not loving Mr Edwards so far, I'm afraid.

Sad but not surprised to report that CK has mentioned on Twitter that he expects to be doing the Tour for Eurosport. At least ITV4 have indicated that they will also be taking up the extended coverage available this year so there is an alternative. Shame their ad breaks are so long and I do like listening to King Kelly.

Kirby is pretty much set on the events he does from year to year. For ES that means a few of the monuments, the Tour and Vuelta and being first choice commentator for most other races, the exceptions being the Italian-owned ones as he was doing those directly for RCS Sport, though until the Giro this time around has not done them since season 2015 iirc.
 
Re: Re:

tobydawq said:
Armchair cyclist said:
tobydawq said:
So far I have seen all of Laura Meseguer, Ashley House and Juan Antonio Flecha on the transmission...

You have to guard yourself against fake news, I guess.

I thought she was very modestly dressed...

:lol:

But isn't that what should be written? You can't use both there, right? When there are more than two?

"All three of..."

Sorry, it tickled me but I shouldn't nitpick the contributions here of those who are not native English speakers (but as a teacher I reserve the right to be as pedantic as can be with those who are). I'm just glad you didn't raise the prospect of seeing all of Ashley House. :eek:


Eurosport is making a much better effort of making a package around the commentary than previously, with the Brian Smith analysis pieces, and the evening highlights programme is something other than showing the last 20 km. They seem to have learned from ITV4's coverage.

Maybe it has even gone too far to the other extreme: one of Edwards (please tell him to either pronounce 'maglia' properly or use the English translation), House and Flecha seems redundant: I guess the only reason both Stephens and Meseguer are necessary is the short time available and the large number of journalists trying to get reactions.
 
Re: Re:

Armchair cyclist said:
"All three of..."

Sorry, it tickled me but I shouldn't nitpick the contributions here of those who are not native English speakers (but as a teacher I reserve the right to be as pedantic as can be with those who are). I'm just glad you didn't raise the prospect of seeing all of Ashley House. :eek:

I appreciate the pedantry. I even think I have the formulation "all of" in my soon-to-be-handed-in master's thesis a couple of times. I should probably make a few corrections, it seems (though I don't think I've accidentally made inappropriate innuendos there!)...
 
They've ruined the Giro Extra. In the past tours the Extra show consisted of Flecha, that English guy and sometimes Lemond chatting and analyzing the stage, sometimes interviewing a rider, but it was about the chemistry between the trio and and analysis.

And now it's just basically a recap of the race, the race that we just watched, then showing the podium and maybe a 1 minute segment with Flecha. Really crap.
 
Re:

RedheadDane said:
Doesn't ex-pros have a tendency of being experts? I mean, who'd be a better expert at something than someone who's actually done the thing in question?

I disagree. Cycling is a pretty cerebral sport, so this comment applies more to other sports, but I usually find the best players are mediocre commentators and the best commentators/analysts were mediocre players, if they even played. I would much rather watch a soccer highlights programme with only journalists providing analysis than boorish, inarticulate former players.
 
Re:

Alberto Fishwick said:
Not loving Mr Edwards so far, I'm afraid.

Sad but not surprised to report that CK has mentioned on Twitter that he expects to be doing the Tour for Eurosport. At least ITV4 have indicated that they will also be taking up the extended coverage available this year so there is an alternative. Shame their ad breaks are so long and I do like listening to King Kelly.

About sums up my feelings as well. I will give Eurosport some credit for trying to do a bit more of a package a la ITV4 but it's not doing much for me at the moment. I think that they would have been better off building on what they had rather than bringing in Edwards. There seem to be too many people involved now, for me at least.
Adverts or not it will be ITV 4 for me for the Tour I think with a quick flick over to Eurosport when the adverts are on!
 
Re: Re:

TMP402 said:
RedheadDane said:
Doesn't ex-pros have a tendency of being experts? I mean, who'd be a better expert at something than someone who's actually done the thing in question?

I disagree. Cycling is a pretty cerebral sport, so this comment applies more to other sports, but I usually find the best players are mediocre commentators and the best commentators/analysts were mediocre players, if they even played. I would much rather watch a soccer highlights programme with only journalists providing analysis than boorish, inarticulate former players.
Sometimes, but I'd still watch MoTD very happily and that's only former pros.
 
Re: Re:

TMP402 said:
RedheadDane said:
Doesn't ex-pros have a tendency of being experts? I mean, who'd be a better expert at something than someone who's actually done the thing in question?

I disagree. Cycling is a pretty cerebral sport, so this comment applies more to other sports, but I usually find the best players are mediocre commentators and the best commentators/analysts were mediocre players, if they even played. I would much rather watch a soccer highlights programme with only journalists providing analysis than boorish, inarticulate former players.

Who said anything about commentating? I was talking solely about being experts, as in having strong knowledge about the sport. Of course being an expert at something doesn't necessarily mean you'd be very good at explaining it to others, in fact I think that - at least when it comes to sport - the better you are, the worse an "explainer" you might be. After all, if something always came completely natural to you, then you might not even realise that you'd need to explain it to people.
All in all I think I'm pretty lucky with the Danish experts, both on Eurosport and TV2 (my two main sources), in fact TV2 has taken a step further than the former pro and hired a current pro - though on conti - namely CAS. Sure, his racing schedule takes priority, but same goes for Brian Holm and his DSing, in fact I suggested that Eurosport should lock up Holm so he can't make it to California, no reply so far...


mariposa said:
[quote="Alberto Fishwick":72e2d990]Not loving Mr Edwards so far, I'm afraid.

Sad but not surprised to report that CK has mentioned on Twitter that he expects to be doing the Tour for Eurosport. At least ITV4 have indicated that they will also be taking up the extended coverage available this year so there is an alternative. Shame their ad breaks are so long and I do like listening to King Kelly.

About sums up my feelings as well. I will give Eurosport some credit for trying to do a bit more of a package a la ITV4 but it's not doing much for me at the moment. I think that they would have been better off building on what they had rather than bringing in Edwards. There seem to be too many people involved now, for me at least.
Adverts or not it will be ITV 4 for me for the Tour I think with a quick flick over to Eurosport when the adverts are on![/quote]

There's a channel that's worse than Eurosport when it comes to ads? :eek:
 
Re: Re:

RedheadDane said:
TMP402 said:
RedheadDane said:
Doesn't ex-pros have a tendency of being experts? I mean, who'd be a better expert at something than someone who's actually done the thing in question?

I disagree. Cycling is a pretty cerebral sport, so this comment applies more to other sports, but I usually find the best players are mediocre commentators and the best commentators/analysts were mediocre players, if they even played. I would much rather watch a soccer highlights programme with only journalists providing analysis than boorish, inarticulate former players.

Who said anything about commentating? I was talking solely about being experts, as in having strong knowledge about the sport. Of course being an expert at something doesn't necessarily mean you'd be very good at explaining it to others, in fact I think that - at least when it comes to sport - the better you are, the worse an "explainer" you might be. After all, if something always came completely natural to you, then you might not even realise that you'd need to explain it to people.
All in all I think I'm pretty lucky with the Danish experts, both on Eurosport and TV2 (my two main sources), in fact TV2 has taken a step further than the former pro and hired a current pro - though on conti - namely CAS. Sure, his racing schedule takes priority, but same goes for Brian Holm and his DSing, in fact I suggested that Eurosport should lock up Holm so he can't make it to California, no reply so far...
In cycling, being a former pro almost automatically makes you a knowledgable expert, as long as you're a half decent talker. There are loads of "experty" details that not a lot of people know about, which makes it interesting.

In football, not so much. Especially gifted players, who have no idea about the tactical side of things. There's a reason why almost all top managers had limitations as a player, which forced them to think about the game if they wanted to succeed. If you want to hire an ex-something to work as a football expert, let it be an ex-manager at least.


RedheadDane said:
There's a channel that's worse than Eurosport when it comes to ads? :eek:
You have obviously never watched cycling on Norwegian TV2. If you have, Eurosport would be a blessing. The TV2 ad-breaks are usually about 10 minutes long (no exaggeration), very frequent, and will be run regardless of the race situation. No such thing as "getting them out of the way before the finale".
 
Argyll Flyers post - on the future races - TBC looks promising - it could mean Kirby hasnt got a foothold as he used to. I think Eurosport UK have finally got the message that viewers are not willing to suffer incompetents waffling their way through races.

Cycling has now become so popular that they are 'getting their act together'.
 

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