Tom Pidcock Commentary Fail: Who Should Commentate?

It does need to be dumbed down a bit for the olympics due to the broader range of viewers.

On Monday morning my colleague, who has never previously expressed any interest in a sport that wasn’t football rugby or cricket knew who pidcock was.

a bit jammy?, he battled hard for his gold, and his previous race performance shows he’s a winner.

BBC coverage was a bit cringe when they asked something akin to ‘you must have been dreaming of this day / olympic gold’ to which his response ‘no not really’ :0)

my mantra at work is not to comment on things i know little about..
its served me well

i had to google who JJ was, good on her for making 2 games, massive achievement in itself.

The culture wars continue.

I only caught the last couple of laps of both Men’s & Women’s – who were the commentary team for the BBC?
They were a bit erm dead pan…….

Warner would be great as he commentates on it all the time.

Rob and Bart without doubt.
Not only are they the tried and tested voices of world cup xco, but Bart as the first ever winner of xco at the Olympics commentating would be perfect for the occasion.

TBF I think Rob is pretty good at the “dumbing down” when his co-commentator says something that could be considered technical he tends to get them to explain what that means. At Hardline at the weekend he got Reece Wilson to explain what tyre inserts are after Reece mentioned some of the riders were using them.

I guess the BBC aren’t going to have a specific commentary team for each event outside of the big ones so those they do have will need a broad knowledge of every sport they’re asked to cover.

I always feel that I have to defend sports commentators because, quite frankly, cycling itself is pretty dull. Especially the more pedally variants. Once you’ve covered the first lap the same things happen over and over.

Speaking to a female MTB guide a few weeks ago was interesting as she had a very dim view of Rob Warner. It was her opinion that he knows a lot about the male racers but very little about anyone but the top few in the ladies races.

A few comments here about the commentary team on the BBC but it was the same commentary team on Euro sport 2
I got the feeling they may have been hired by Euro-sport rather then the BBC as Euro-sport (Discovery) are the European-wide rights holder to the Olympic coverage, so the BBC used their commentary team/feed and didn’t even bother to get their own commentary team in for the coverage

On the BBC website it has a better explanation of the agreement
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/57822560

Speaking to a female MTB guide a few weeks ago was interesting as she had a very dim view of Rob Warner. It was her opinion that he knows a lot about the male racers but very little about anyone but the top few in the ladies races.

I always has Claudio down as the sexist one, but he seems to be getting less and less airtime now.

In downhill, lets be honest, we are seeing the same 5 or 6 women every race, and they get their 3 minutes of air time. when someone new does come along, like when Ballanche appeared a few years back, or Mikayla Parton recently, he does have an interesting fact or two about them.
With the men it might be more noticable, the one race of the year when e.g. Ed Masters gets on the live stream, that he could run off a few more sentences.

With XC, if you arent up at the front of the race, the TV producers dont give you a look in, male or female. Very rare exception of a top rider trying to come back from a crash or mechanical, you have to be schurter or courtney levels of fame for that. They would rather show the rider with a minute lead cruise to victory than a hard fought battle for 3rd-4th place. None of that is Rob’s fault.

 It was her opinion that he knows a lot about the male racers but very little about anyone but the top few in the ladies races.

I think a legitimate critism a few years back. But I think after a race at Mont St Anne in 2017 (I think), where Rachel called out the RB commentators (Rob and Claudio)  for suggesting that she’d only got where she had because of her brothers, and for not pointing out that it was in fact a woman (Rachel) who’d clocked the fastest speed of the weekend through the speed trap at the end of the rough straight

I think they sorted themselves out pretty sharpish after that. Their knowledge of all the competitors (even juniors) is pretty strong these days

Apologies for my unbounded ignorance here….

A few months ago there was a thread about a sweary bloke who does loads of random fun irreverent videos in the woods with his mates. The debate was around whether his swearing was getting a tad excessive. Is he Rob Warner?

Also, the commentator who did ” how does Danny Hart manage to sit down with balls…” is that Rob Warner?

Thanks

It sounded like the South African that commentates on the Cape Epic…. and when he does that I thought it was pretty good. Gerald de Koch. Usually pretty knowledgable.

Who actually was it for the Olympic XC? It was a bit meh.

Rob and Bart without doubt.

Bart was busy doing the Dutch commentary.

Rochelle Gilmour was alright co-commentating on the women’s MTB, but they totally failed to spot the moment where PFP allegedly brake-checked Neff and she did the nose-dive off the side of the drop.

There is only credible cycling commentator and his name is… Carlton Kirby. You might think he knows nothing about xc mountain biking, but then he knows very little about road cycling either and that has never stopped him. He’s the obvious choice.

Their knowledge of all the competitors (even juniors) is pretty strong these days

Is that knowledge or stuff recited of a stats/info feed when the rider’s on track? some of it’s going to go in as they say it, I’m sure.

One issue is the massive commercialisation machine that is the Olympics. In 2012, I tried to get a press pass, only to be told that those went to big broadcasters and pool photographers. So it’s all aimed at, say, The Telegraph, who’ll either get press passes to cover every sport, or if it’s a big media organisation, they might have someone to cover all of the cycling, from track to MTB. Niche publications get no look-in because they’ll only deliver a (very expert) view to a small audience. What the Olympics Corp wants is for the mass media to spread an OK view of the whole event to everyone on earth.

Saying that, though, I remember one co-commentator at the Atlanta Olympics in ’96 was Nicky Crowther, editor at the time (or perhaps just ex-editor) of MBi magazine. That was some far more insightful commentary…

Defo Not Alex scott… former professional female footballer now BBC sport called Tom a cross county mountain biker ….not country…. easy mistake or no clue you decide?

Anyone can fumble the auto-cue so I wouldn’t give Alex Scott grief for that but the pair commentating on the racing were dire. No specialist knowledge in evidence and dull to boot. minimum effort spent and very disappointing.

I cannot wait for the Climbing to start.

#1
“Climbing up these wall is tough work. Both hand and feet come into play, it’s all about hands and feet.”
#2. Yes Barry magnificent.
#1
” Wide span. Really helpful in this extrem sport where you no only have to battle the physical challenge or climbing, but the mental fear of falling.”
#2
“They are tide in though aren’t they Barry?”
#1.
“Yes they do, very safe and they have extra small shoes that allow the climbers to stick the wall”
#2. Magnificent Barry. Absolutely magnificent.

Double post 🙈