Eurosport desperately needs a so-commentator who rode GC in the 2000's/2010's, aka someone who is closer to modern cycling. I don't mean Bradley Wiggins either.
I like Magnus Bäckstedt when he's on, but 'with all due respect' to Sean Kelly I don't think he's well placed at all to talk about GC battles in modern GT's. Cycling has changed so much since his time, it's barely the same sport.
Agreed, although the marginalisation of Kelly in favour of riders with less gravitas is one of the biggest concerns about the current crop of commentators - having too many riders from the same circle of teammates and buddies runs the risk of it becoming too informal, too matey and not professional enough. People like Lloyd and Bäckstedt are experienced enough to know when to take their subjectivity glasses off and get serious about the race.
The problem is that they need Anglophones, and with Britain being a relatively recent developer in terms of big contenders, most of the British riders who could fill that role are still active (Thomas, Froome, Yates, Yates, Carthy). Of those I think Hugh Carthy would be really good when he's retired, Froome gives me the impression he'd be too dry, and I absolutely
dread Geraint Thomas going on GCN, it will become unbearable with his "I'm one of the lads I am!" style and everybody else fawning over "G". They already have Wiggins, and everybody else they could reasonably have are just as disconnected from the modern GC races as Kelly, such as Boardman and Philippa York.
But if you look at candidates from other English speaking countries, you run into problems as well. Most of the American GC riders of that era come with doping history that is likely to impact their suitability to the image GCN wants to present. Lance is a no-no for that reason, Levi is boring, and Horner has burned too many bridges. A Tejay van Garderen or an Andrew Talansky is the best you can hope for there, as it doesn't look like somebody like Christian Vande Velde is a likely candidate otherwise he'd have been involved by now given his contacts with Millar, Wiggins and the like. Ryder Hesjedal is not American but he falls into the same category, being part of that Vaughters club of "ex-dopers done good" that come with baggage. For the Aussies, Cadel Evans would be the obvious choice from a credentials point of view but I've never got the impression he'd be comfortable with a commentary gig, Mick Rogers is both boring and tainted, and Richie Porte is still active for the short term at least. While I'd love to have Nicole Cooke on, Emma Pooley back on or similar, their eras came before the WWT expansion and so while they have solid experience as GC riders, the racing will not have been along similar lines to GC racing in men's GTs in the 2000s/10s and so the issue is similar to that you raise with Kelly.
Potentially the best candidate they would have therefore is Nico Roche, who is already on the team. He has been both a domestique and a GC leader for teams of varying sizes until pretty recently, his best GC finish is good, he stagehunted too, he wasn't a one-off fluke of a high GC like Phil Deignan, and he has shown good insight on his commentary gigs thus far. However, he does have to work on being at ease with the microphone which will hopefully come in time. This year's Tour is probably too soon for him, but by next year if he shows improvement he will be infinitely better than the likes of Blythe when it comes to interpreting the racing at the sharp end for yellow, polka dots and white, and somebody like McEwen is better equipped to do the role of analysing the sprint stuff than Blythe
and comes with greater gravitas due to his career record too.
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