The Olympics are over for another 4 years.
Didn't we (GB) do well. Apparently, yes, according to the medal table. Well, one of the medal tables... I'm not sure that any of them really mean much. But we certainly won a lot of medals.
I say "we", as if I had anything to do with it. I don't even play the Lottery. I did cheer from the side of the road in the 2012 road race, which might have inspired Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins a bit. No. Probably didn't help much.
This was a weird games for me.
I watched some of it on TV. But because of the time difference I didn't stay up late to watch any of the "main" events. So lots of it was second-hand viewing.
The BBC did a decent job, apart from the mad channel switching. I mean, Olympics all night on BBC1 apart from Eastenders... please switch over to BBC2 for half an hour because we have to game the ratings.
Amazingly they did delay the 10pm news for Jason Kenny in the keirin. Which then over-ran massively with those 2 restarts. Go Kenny!!! And Laura!!!
Watched a bit of the Tae-kwon-do ... mixed feelings about that ... should probably call it Tae-do now that punches almost never score?
Even watched some horse things?!? And swimming.
What the hell is BMX about? Top riders got run off the course on lap 1... and out. Madness.
Hazel Irvine presenting. Slightly less annoying than when she ruins the snooker.
Lots of excitement about Usain Bolt (only saw the replays).
Distance runner Brendan Foster declaring distance runner Mo Farah the best British sportsman of all time. Yeah, not at all biased.
But overall a very fragmented experience. Didn't feel like one event at all this time.
Wonder what Tokyo will be like? Would love to go!!!
Monday 22 August 2016
Sunday 7 August 2016
BBC Sport for everyone and no-one
Last week's BBC coverage of the Ride 100 Classic was pretty poor. Especially when they lost picture for the crucial last 5km with Geraint Thomas trying to cling on to his lead.
But at least they had David Millar on his motorbike giving us some insight.
Yesterday's coverage of the Olympic road race was awful.
For a start, it was bounced between BBC 1 and the "Red Button" channels that I can't get... so I watched a lot of it on the PS4 app... with no commentary initially, plenty of buffering and mediocre picture quality.
When we did get commentary it was Chris Boardman and some stato who kept talking over him to tell us that the guy on the front was 4th in the Tour of Nowhere 2 years ago !?!
It may have been the sound quality, but several times it sounded to me like Chris and Stato were eating something and trying to talk with their mouths full.
And clearly they had very little information about what was going on. Probably not their fault, but in that situation you need someone like David Millar who can fill in the gaps with educated guesses.
I have massive respect for Boardman, who has done a huge amount of work for cycling in the UK, but he is best as a pre-race and post-race analyst, not as an in-race commentator. Have the BBC never seen the excellent ITV4 coverage of the Tour de France?
So the live coverage was a bit dodgy. But what really made me angry was the potted summary which was shown later.
In the summary Steve Cummings was shown pulling over and Chris Boardman said "That's disappointing". Which gave the impression that Steve had done a poor ride. He did a brilliant job. The full quote was "That's disappointing he had to do a team job early on rather than having a chance to go for it himself".
Very poor editing.
There was also very little respect for Geraint Thomas who was shown in the gutter after his crash, without any mention of the fact that he had done an excellent ride and was in contention for a long time.
All the talk was about Chris Froome finishing 12th. As if he was ever a serious contender for gold. He's never won a major one-day race. He's a Grand Tour rider. Don't the BBC understand that? Or do they think the audience are too stupid to understand? He won the TdF, and this is only 200km, so he should win easy... right?
Even worse, I heard one piece that said "Just like Mark Cavendish's failure to win 4 years ago, Team GB favourite Chris Froome was disapointed to be out of the medals."
Really?
Cavendish is a bunch sprinter. There wasn't a bunch sprint in London 2012, so he didn't win. Froome was heavily marked yesterday, he never had a chance.
The ignorance of the BBC is astounding. Come on. You can do better than this. The BBC coverage of some sports is excellent. Surely you can find some decent journalists to write up a fair summary for all the events?
But at least they had David Millar on his motorbike giving us some insight.
Yesterday's coverage of the Olympic road race was awful.
For a start, it was bounced between BBC 1 and the "Red Button" channels that I can't get... so I watched a lot of it on the PS4 app... with no commentary initially, plenty of buffering and mediocre picture quality.
When we did get commentary it was Chris Boardman and some stato who kept talking over him to tell us that the guy on the front was 4th in the Tour of Nowhere 2 years ago !?!
It may have been the sound quality, but several times it sounded to me like Chris and Stato were eating something and trying to talk with their mouths full.
And clearly they had very little information about what was going on. Probably not their fault, but in that situation you need someone like David Millar who can fill in the gaps with educated guesses.
I have massive respect for Boardman, who has done a huge amount of work for cycling in the UK, but he is best as a pre-race and post-race analyst, not as an in-race commentator. Have the BBC never seen the excellent ITV4 coverage of the Tour de France?
So the live coverage was a bit dodgy. But what really made me angry was the potted summary which was shown later.
In the summary Steve Cummings was shown pulling over and Chris Boardman said "That's disappointing". Which gave the impression that Steve had done a poor ride. He did a brilliant job. The full quote was "That's disappointing he had to do a team job early on rather than having a chance to go for it himself".
Very poor editing.
There was also very little respect for Geraint Thomas who was shown in the gutter after his crash, without any mention of the fact that he had done an excellent ride and was in contention for a long time.
All the talk was about Chris Froome finishing 12th. As if he was ever a serious contender for gold. He's never won a major one-day race. He's a Grand Tour rider. Don't the BBC understand that? Or do they think the audience are too stupid to understand? He won the TdF, and this is only 200km, so he should win easy... right?
Even worse, I heard one piece that said "Just like Mark Cavendish's failure to win 4 years ago, Team GB favourite Chris Froome was disapointed to be out of the medals."
Really?
Cavendish is a bunch sprinter. There wasn't a bunch sprint in London 2012, so he didn't win. Froome was heavily marked yesterday, he never had a chance.
The ignorance of the BBC is astounding. Come on. You can do better than this. The BBC coverage of some sports is excellent. Surely you can find some decent journalists to write up a fair summary for all the events?
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