Eurosport commentary

[jarvo]

I actually like Sean Kelly, I just associate his voice with watching cycling, without really listening to what he is saying. Plus he has been there, done it and quite literally got the t-shirt (jersey). Its just a shame Rob Hatch doesn't get the prime lead commentary role more often. At TdF the times when Hatch and Kelly were on together were much better listening than Kirby/Kelly

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

Hey guys!
Have you heard that Carlton Kirby started a charity and had the gall to talk about it on TV?
What an *******! There's just no end to his brutish behaviour.
I also heard he once wrote their instead of there.
What a dullard.
I think we should start a poll ranking our degree of hate to CK and send it to Eurosport. That'll show 'em.

Good lord, man. Criticizing a guy for talking about a charity.
Have you seen the landscape so far at the Vuelta? It's like the top of Mount Ventoux.
What else is he gonna talk about?
Today he tried to get the audience excited about a plot of land that looked like an abandoned parking lot at a construction site.

And don't even get me started about the "They really needed that" line.
You guys might want to pause before unleashing the hate. You remind me of the guy a while back who had no clue about Aesops Fables.
Did it occur to you that he was referring to the amount of work that Quick Step invested in the run-in of a fairly chaotic sprint?

Please, don't make me come back here day after day to remind everyone that CK is a legend among mere mortals.
C'mon guys, step it up a little.

Kirby repeats the same phrases over and over again no matter the situation. He is a sporting cliché machine. If he wanted to comment on how much Etixx worked then he would've said "wanted" or "deserved". Needed is completely wrong in that context if he intended what you say, which I doubt as Kirby, to me, just had a blank of what to say and just regurgitated a random stock phrase. Like when Jelle Wallays was on the ground and then got back on his bike his reaction was "Oh, Jelle Wallays, it's not good news: he's back on the bike but he is no hurry at all, he's going to ship a lot of time here, oh dear. These are principal riders losing out here, Sean" or something like that, which managed to put a lot of bs crammed into a sentence. I understand it was a dramatic moment and he might've not been thinking straight, but he's paid to do this. I used to like Kirby but he's becoming more and more annoying; he should just step back and specialise on motor racing which is something he is much more knowledgeable on and clearly prefers (he's genuinely decent there, if you ignore/enjoy his jokes). Hatch I think is a far better announcer and should become the lead for Eurosport.

 

[the delgados]

Hey there, Brullnux.
I hope you understand that most of my comments are said in jest. I really have no emotional investment in cycling broadcasting. That said, I'm interested in what people have to say about Carlton Kirby, Sean Kelly, etc. etc. and I'm not going to stop responding to what I perceive to be ill-conceived negative comments addressed to my man Carlton Kirby.
We could talk forever about the proper term CK should have used to describe the Quick Step victory, but i contend that Carlton Kirby was not referring to a drought. He's called many QS victories this year, the most recent being 48 hours previous. He hasn't forgotten about a race he called two days previous.
He knows QS is a force to be reckoned with. I guess what I'm trying to say is he may well have been referring to the mindset of the riders--i.e. I really need to help win this stage, otherwise I might be out of a job.
That's where the pro should step in and set the record straight. Kelly may have well as said, "Yeah, my man Carlton Kirby. The run-in to the finish was a bit hectic, and Trentin's teammates were working like their careers depended on it."
See what i'm saying?
Are you still awake?
i know I'm rambling on, but I hope you get my point.

 

[yaco]

Too many whinging nellies in this thread - Eurosport present a quality coverage of cycling all through the year - We should be thankful !

 

[TMP402]

Carlton: "There's a Polish alliance at the moment, and everyone else will be left with a sausage".

 

[the delgados]

Re:

Carlton: "There's a Polish alliance at the moment, and everyone else will be left with a sausage".

Ha! You're finally picking up on some of CK's mildly amusing quips.
Good ear, TMK 40022.

 

[PlanZ]

It's so painful listening to Kirby, the bloke is an absolute buffoon.

On the upside, he did teach me that you can watching cycling without any commentary just listening to music.
A self-aggrandizing, conceited poltroon.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

Too many whinging nellies in this thread - Eurosport present a quality coverage of cycling all through the year - We should be thankful !

Sure, if they don't suddenly decide that they'd much rather show the "in march" (dunno what the proper term is) of some football match, than the finale of the Queen stage in a bike race (Valencia). They literally cut away just as Contador attacked, and yes; I'm still bitter about that one!

 

[Durden93]

Re:

Hey guys!
Have you heard that Carlton Kirby started a charity and had the gall to talk about it on TV?
What an *******! There's just no end to his brutish behaviour.
I also heard he once wrote their instead of there.
What a dullard.
I think we should start a poll ranking our degree of hate to CK and send it to Eurosport. That'll show 'em.

Good lord, man. Criticizing a guy for talking about a charity.
Have you seen the landscape so far at the Vuelta? It's like the top of Mount Ventoux.
What else is he gonna talk about?
Today he tried to get the audience excited about a plot of land that looked like an abandoned parking lot at a construction site.

And don't even get me started about the "They really needed that" line.
You guys might want to pause before unleashing the hate. You remind me of the guy a while back who had no clue about Aesops Fables.
Did it occur to you that he was referring to the amount of work that Quick Step invested in the run-in of a fairly chaotic sprint?

Please, don't make me come back here day after day to remind everyone that CK is a legend among mere mortals.
C'mon guys, step it up a little.

Thank you. I guarantee you if anyone on this forum tried to be a commentator they would fail miserably.

 

[Durden93]

Re:

I actually like Sean Kelly, I just associate his voice with watching cycling, without really listening to what he is saying. Plus he has been there, done it and quite literally got the t-shirt (jersey). Its just a shame Rob Hatch doesn't get the prime lead commentary role more often. At TdF the times when Hatch and Kelly were on together were much better listening than Kirby/Kelly

Agreed. Hatch and Kelly are a very good combination. I feel like Hatch says things/asks Kelly questions which actually lead to good insight. Carleton doesn't do that as often. He entertains with his excitement and his jokes.

 

[kenk09]

Shameful that Kirby clearly has no idea who Mohoric is.

 

[yaco]

Shameful that Kirby clearly has no idea who Mohoric is.

What ? By Kirby standards he provided an excellent coverage of Mohoric's palmares - What a poor and inaccurate post.

 

[kenk09]

Shameful that Kirby clearly has no idea who Mohoric is.

What ? By Kirby standards he provided an excellent coverage of Mohoric's palmares - What a poor and inaccurate post.

You mean he "looked briefly at his profile page on procyclingstats", saw no major results and decided his performance must have come as a big surprise to his own team. That he won junior and u23 world titles in back-to-back years was not within a mile of Kirby's knowledge bank.

 

[Brullnux]

Shameful that Kirby clearly has no idea who Mohoric is.

What ? By Kirby standards he provided an excellent coverage of Mohoric's palmares - What a poor and inaccurate post.

You mean he "looked briefly at his profile page on procyclingstats", saw no major results and decided his performance must have come as a big surprise to his own team. That he won junior and u23 world titles in back-to-back years was not within a mile of Kirby's knowledge bank.

The performance was a surprise. Since going WT he's struggled a lot, and this was a victory of relief for him I imagine.

 

[argyllflyer]

He made reference to MM doing a Sagan by sitting on the top tube, but did he not do that himself during the U23 Worlds win?

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

He made reference to MM doing a Sagan by sitting on the top tube, but did he not do that himself during the U23 Worlds win?

Wouldn't be surprised if Kirby thinks Froome invented the technique :lol:

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Re: Re:

He made reference to MM doing a Sagan by sitting on the top tube, but did he not do that himself during the U23 Worlds win?

Wouldn't be surprised if Kirby thinks Froome invented the technique :lol:

I'd be shocked if he thought differently or if he'd shown any knowledge of Mohoric

 

[yaco]

Shameful that Kirby clearly has no idea who Mohoric is.

What ? By Kirby standards he provided an excellent coverage of Mohoric's palmares - What a poor and inaccurate post.

You mean he "looked briefly at his profile page on procyclingstats", saw no major results and decided his performance must have come as a big surprise to his own team. That he won junior and u23 world titles in back-to-back years was not within a mile of Kirby's knowledge bank.

Mate - Stop making it up - He eloquently discussed his palmares with some conviction and mentioned he was changing teams - Well if he looked up Mohoric's profile page on Cycling Stats that's what posters will be asking - To be honest you should be celebrating Mohoric's victory, instead of taking cheap shots at commentators - And by the way, I watched Mohoric win the Hong Kong Cyclothon in 2016.

 

[PlanZ]

Re: Re:

Hey guys!
Have you heard that Carlton Kirby started a charity and had the gall to talk about it on TV?
What an *******! There's just no end to his brutish behaviour.
I also heard he once wrote their instead of there.
What a dullard.
I think we should start a poll ranking our degree of hate to CK and send it to Eurosport. That'll show 'em.

Good lord, man. Criticizing a guy for talking about a charity.
Have you seen the landscape so far at the Vuelta? It's like the top of Mount Ventoux.
What else is he gonna talk about?
Today he tried to get the audience excited about a plot of land that looked like an abandoned parking lot at a construction site.

And don't even get me started about the "They really needed that" line.
You guys might want to pause before unleashing the hate. You remind me of the guy a while back who had no clue about Aesops Fables.
Did it occur to you that he was referring to the amount of work that Quick Step invested in the run-in of a fairly chaotic sprint?

Please, don't make me come back here day after day to remind everyone that CK is a legend among mere mortals.
C'mon guys, step it up a little.

Thank you. I guarantee you if anyone on this forum tried to be a commentator they would fail miserably.

A meaningless comment. I'd be a lousy politician, so does that mean I'm not allowed to criticise them?
Under your bizarre logic I'm only permitted to find fault with members of my own profession.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Re: Re:

He made reference to MM doing a Sagan by sitting on the top tube, but did he not do that himself during the U23 Worlds win?

Wouldn't be surprised if Kirby thinks Froome invented the technique :lol:

He later said that Mohoric had done this some time earlier: he might even have credited him with inventing it. But it did sound as though it was something that had been drawn to his attention later.

But it is usually the lack of drawing attention that so often lets the commentators down. Given the amount of time for which Kirby, or whoever else the main commentator is, some mistakes can be forgiven. But the second chair really should be more attentive. So when Kirby suddenly announced that the gap behind Mohoric had leapt from 6 to 22 seconds, Kelly should have been quick to point out that that was the time to the De Marchi group, not to the Rojas group: when Kirby was saying that this was Sagan's descending style, Kelly should have been alert to tell him that Mohoric had used it when he first came to a wider audience 6 years ago.

Or has he been told not to correct him too often?

 

[the delgados]

Kirby could mention every victory going back to Mohoric's junior days and still be criticized for not remembering the name of his first pet.
I'm guessing that close to 200 riders started the Vuelta. Only an autistic genius would know the history of each and every rider.
Good lord, people. What up with the hell bent, pathological treatment of my man Carlton Kirby?
He does a good job trying to keep Kelly awake.

 

[Lupi33x]

Kirby's picked the last 2 stage winners

 

[argyllflyer]

Kirby could mention every victory going back to Mohoric's junior days and still be criticized for not remembering the name of his first pet.
I'm guessing that close to 200 riders started the Vuelta. Only an autistic genius would know the history of each and every rider.
Good lord, people. What up with the hell bent, pathological treatment of my man Carlton Kirby?
He does a good job trying to keep Kelly awake.

I'm of the opinion that the commentator should know more than the viewer, after all they're being paid to be informed.

 

[DFA123]

Kirby could mention every victory going back to Mohoric's junior days and still be criticized for not remembering the name of his first pet.
I'm guessing that close to 200 riders started the Vuelta. Only an autistic genius would know the history of each and every rider.
Good lord, people. What up with the hell bent, pathological treatment of my man Carlton Kirby?
He does a good job trying to keep Kelly awake.

I'm of the opinion that the commentator should know more than the viewer, after all they're being paid to be informed.

He probably does know more than 95% of the viewers. Does he know more than some of the tiny percentage who spend their days on specialist cycling forums and browsing procyclingstats? Probably not; and nor would most reasonable people expect him to.

 

[kenk09]

Kirby could mention every victory going back to Mohoric's junior days and still be criticized for not remembering the name of his first pet.
I'm guessing that close to 200 riders started the Vuelta. Only an autistic genius would know the history of each and every rider.
Good lord, people. What up with the hell bent, pathological treatment of my man Carlton Kirby?
He does a good job trying to keep Kelly awake.

I'm of the opinion that the commentator should know more than the viewer, after all they're being paid to be informed.

He probably does know more than 95% of the viewers. Does he know more than some of the tiny percentage who spend their days on specialist cycling forums and browsing procyclingstats? Probably not; and nor would most reasonable people expect him to.

I would expect the lead commentator on "the home of cycling" to know who Matej Mohoric is. That's not too much to ask. He was THE talk of cycling after he won the u23 World Champs. His descending technique was on every cycling website, and in every cycling magazine, all over twitter etc. Kirby didn't have a clue.

The 95% that he's better informed than (I strongly disagree with that % by the way) should be informed by him, and they're not.