Ride London Classics - womens' & mens' (Spoilers)

[deptfordmarmoset]

MI5 and MI6 obviously didn't want overhead pictures of their HQs.

 

[swansonj]

That was a really human, unbittered interview with Thomas - top guy

 

[J1888]

What a shame that the coverage died at the end

 

[newfhouse]

Terrible lack of back-up by the BBC, what dismal coverage in the end.

An independent production company provided the pictures as far as I can see - Century TV.

 

[HF2300]

That was a really human, unbittered interview with Thomas - top guy

Yes, frank interview as always. Interesting what he said about being out on his own - I did wonder whether he'd have been better working with Stannard. Would love to know the thinking and discussion and how the tactics evolved; why did he decide it was do or die, why Stannard didn't try to go across earlier, why he didn't wait more, how the various legs felt, and so on.

 

[newfhouse]

OK, sorry BBC. Dismal effort by 19th-Century TV.

More likely, lots of effort but technical issues with the helicopter downlink. A real shame and probably some nervous engineers shuffling their feet waiting for the technical debrief...

 

[newfhouse]

As I said, no back-up plan.

This probably isn't the thread for this, but what technical back up would you suggest, and at what cost? This stuff isn't easy to do on a limited budget.

(Declaration of interest: Many years ago I was a BBC broadcast engineer.)

 

[RedRider]

Cracking enjoyable race tho. Great doomed effort from Thomas, (sky tactics so watchable again) and good to see a class act like boonen win the sprint.

 

[Buddfox]

Just goes to show how quickly things can change at the sharp end of the race. Fully expecting to watch G come past on his own only to see a fairly large peloton flying to the finish and Thomas back amongst the cars!

 

[smutchin]

Just goes to show how quickly things can change at the sharp end of the race. Fully expecting to watch G come past on his own only to see a fairly large peloton flying to the finish and Thomas back amongst the cars!

It was a bit bizarre the way the commentators were calling race over with 35km still left to go, but you know, David Millar has so much more experience than me that he couldn't possibly be wrong...

 

[Buddfox]

It was a bit bizarre the way the commentators were calling race over with 35km still left to go, but you know, David Millar has so much more experience than me that he couldn't possibly be wrong...

Quite - when I had to stop watching the coverage it seemed like everyone else should just give up! Great for Tom Boonen to win.

 

[Mike_P]

Terrible lack of back-up by the BBC, what dismal coverage in the end.

No worse that the lack of coverage of most of Saturdays TdY which was ITV. I would not put it past the issue being some pirate broadcaster causing the problems and being unable to cover the race alongside the Thames with its obvious over river flying facility would have been about the last place loss of signal would have been expected.

 

[newfhouse]

I just can't imagine this being accepted in any other sport you could name.

There are very few comparable sports - most are contained within a stadium or similar and don't need multiple mobile cameras whizzing around in the thick of the action at high speed over a wide geographical area. F1? The broadcast technical budget will be several orders of magnitude greater and shoot still happens.

 

[Andrew_P]

Mr Millar on the back of motorbike was a bit bizarre, or was it just me who thought that didn't work? Thought at one point he was going to stick the mike under a riders nose for a quote.

 

[newfhouse]

I would not put it past the issue being some pirate broadcaster causing the problems

Unlikely in the extreme IMO.