in message <[email hidden]>, Richard Goodman
(') said:"Simon Brooke" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Well, on t'telly last night, it was nice to see Cannondale doing a
one (Cristophe Sausser) two (Roel Paulissen) in the mens' cross
country. Because I'd missed the fact that last nights programme
started twenty
On telly? Oh, bum, missed that altogether. Is there more coverage
still to
come? Which channel? When?
BBC2 Scotland, and no, you've missed it. It was extremely well done, in
my opinion. Clearly not very expensively produced, and with a little
bit of acknowledgement of a non-biking audience - not much technicality
and apart from Honda no brand names got mentioned (although the
commentators did comment on the Lefties on the winning XC bikes). There
was some helicopter overhead coverage which worked well for the top of
the downhill and for good sections of the XC, and a lot of trackside
cameras at different points on the track - some obviously hand-held.
Although we only got coverage of the top few downhillers runs and of
that only about a minute and a half out of each (four and a bit minute)
run, we got about fifteen minutes coverage of the Mens' Crosscountry
(and, as I switched on twenty minutes after last night's program had
started and the Womens' XC coverage was just finishing) presumably
fifteen minutes of the Womens' XC as well.
The anchor was a rather gushing woman I didn't recognise, who did an
OK-ish job. The commentary teams consisted of one experienced TV sports
commentator and one experienced cyclist, and this worked well (wasn't
the same commentary team for all events). The commentators had done
their homework and were able to give bits of background on each rider,
and the cyclist was able to comment on things like lines and
technicalities. In the introduction to the downhill programme the
cyclist member of the commentator team did a run down the course
himself with a helmet camera and described it as he experienced it,
which was good watching.
The interviews, although quite brief, were quite good too, and it was
interesting to see the Irish chap from the UCI, and also the Sports
Minister, being interviewed. The implication from both interviews is
that we would see more high quality mountain bike competition in
Scotland and that there would be more promotion of it - the guy from
the UCI was extremely complimentary about the organisation of the
event, and about the crowds, which were apparently bigger (more than
10,000 - 15,000 got mentioned on last night's programme) than are
common at cycling events.
Personally I'd have liked to see much more about the bikes - the only
one we saw in much detail was the much-hyped Honda[1] (Greg Minnaar)
which won the Mens' Downhill. However all in all it was good television
- one hour forty minutes in all - which for a general audience I think
would have been at least as interesting as 'Ski Sunday', which, in
format, it very much resembled.
I personally didn't go much for the four-cross event - too short to be
interesting, I thought, although tactics were interesting (that Steve
Peat is a maniac - but a very capable maniac). The downhill probably
made the best television as television, although for me the XC was the
best bit. And what was really good about it, for me, was watching the
guys on the course on bikes not that different from mine and knowing
that in the immortal words 'I could do that' - not fast enough to
compete with those guys, of course, but there was nothing on the XC
course which looked technically beyond me.
Worth staying up late for.
[1] This bike has a bottom bracket gearbox of precisely the type I've
been suggesting for some time. However, because it's not a URT it has a
fairly complex chain-line which must cost a bit in efficiency.
--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
,/| _.--''^``-...___.._.,;
/, \'. _-' ,--,,,--'''
{ \ `_-'' ' /
`;;' ; ; ;
._..--'' ._,,, _..' .;.'
(,_....----''' (,..--''
