Lenzerheide DH World Cup: How Was It For You?

Discovery+ via Sky Q. Free of charge… excellent coverage, cameras etc…

Only thing i would like is more of the ‘Tech Randoms’ type stuff, more rider interviews, discussions with tech people… But that’s me being me rather than a general consumer.

Cedric was slightly hard to understand at times… but i’m kinda used to Euro accents as i work with many. Do i miss Warner… yeah a bit, but not enough to make me miss watching it… I don’t understand why people would not watch it just because he’s not commentating.

I also don’t understand why people wouldn’t pay £7 a month either.

I would need top go and watch a previous year from Lenzerheide to really compare, but I thought the filming really didn’t show the best of the action, didn’t give the best impression of the speed and technicality (which to be fair is a comment I have made about redbull after some rounds as well). So for the camerawork I will give a B-

Commentary was weak IMO, with both trying to emulate Warner rather than be themselves, which I will give a grade C for. But I am willing to give them time to find their own voices.

I will be disappointed if there are not improvements as the season progresses, looking at the spilt times between the top 4, there was more action going on than seen by either the cameras or relayed by the commentators.

Got me out on a bike, sadly on the road… but only it was being shown for free.

Paid for GCN+ earlier in the year. Didn’t get to watch on Saturday but put the highlights on. Just french commentary, couldn’t find highlights in english. Gave up and watched the youtube version.

Once again, watched more of Cathro talking about the course then the racing afterwards than I did of the racing itself.

Can’t do Leogang live, will have to give it a proper go for Val di Sole.

Watched on the Discovery+ site, technically all good other than a brief error.

Coverage and commentary wasn’t bad, they didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the race runs on a few occasions, but I’m sure they’ll get better with some practice.

Paying monthly to try it out, probably not going to keep subscribing for long when so far I’ve seen absolutely nothing else on Discovery that interests me. Might be tempted as part of BT Sport.

The XCO coverage hit the ground running from the first race, the DH coverage stumbled in my opinion.

I watched some of the juniors live, sone of the semi finals live but haven’t paid for the subscription and therefore only watched the free highlights of the finals on YouTube.

If I had paid for a subscription then I’d feel almost obliged to watch the whole thing and it’s too much time over the course of a couple of days.   When it was free I could watch it if I wanted, or just catch up later.

My take is that some of the camera work was pretty poor, bad angles and too zoomed in parts (I thought it was supposed to be the same camera team as the redbull coverage).  Good track coverage tho, more of the course viewable.   The commentary wasn’t bad but it wasn’t particularly engaging.  Cedric had some good rider input/insight.  Hopefully the commentary team will gel, with time.   There wasn’t much of an atmosphere about it.  Something I think Warner et al did very well.

Only watching it on YouTube on my phone I found the graphics on the finish time almost impossible to decipher.

Only watching it on YouTube on my phone I found the graphics on the finish time almost impossible to decipher.

So did the commentators, they couldn’t tell who’d won for a few secs at the end. They really need to give the time differential at the end of each run a bit more “pop” on screen.

Overall it was decent enough. Footage seemed similar standard to RB (same camera crews anyway?).

Commentary functional if a bit flat. Warner had his faults and they addressed a couple of them, but it lacked the confidence, authority and escalation of excitement that he has – and which the racing warranted.

They seemed a bit lost at times.

Yeah, passed me by too. Might catch some highlights if they pop up on my feed on Youtube. Watched pretty much all the events last season, but TBH it’s always interesting to see how much I really miss an event when coverage isn’t freely available. Same with England cricket and Rugby – as soon as it went behind a paywall I found I didn’t really miss it, and was happy with highlights on catchup.

@BruceWee check our ‘WTF is happening’ preview from last Friday for points deets.

Cool, between that story and the Intense story linked in the comments I think that covers about everything (although in the Intense one they did say, ‘we may have got this wrong’ which makes you wonder what chance the rest of us have got).

I thought the coverage was pretty good.

There were the obvious mistakes with wrong rider names & times in some places – but not bad for a first effort.

Would be good to see some more top-bottom runs if they can – the drone chase gives a really good impression of speed on those sections too.

Ric & Cedric were pretty good – not Warner & Claudio good but waaay better than when the BBC did the Worlds…. Looking forward to seeing the partnership develop over the coming rounds.

Racing was excellent – great to see the juniors too.

New format – pretty interesting, more racing coverage can’t be a bad thing?

How many of the Elite Women are protected? Could see this being an issue later on with only the top 10 competing in the finals.

Rach & Jordan though? What a pair of riders!!!

I think the speed of the current crop of riders was a shock to Sam Hill – not making it to the semi’s.

I think the speed of the current crop of riders was a shock to Sam Hill – not making it to the semi’s.

He didn’t do great at Fort William in the Nationals either. He was 37/50 and slower than the fastest youth riders.. The game moves on and it’s a tough tough time

Tried to tune in via BT Sport but couldn’t find it.

Gave up and went and did something else instead.

I was perplexed during the course preview by them cutting away from the track to an over Cedric’s shoulder frame of a blank iPad screen. Strange.
Too zoomed yes. Each camera seemed a bit distant from the action compressing it.
I like Cedric and I’m sure he’ll get into the swing of it.
I did like Nigel Page’s commentary on that amazing wet Danny Hart run (Champery?) takes some beating.

Watched the DH Semis and Junior finals then watched the Elite final highlights all after the fact on YT. That was pretty good IMO, considering I was expecting WB to nail a lid on all free to view coverage, that was many hours of viewing, more than I could really spare.

I’ve set the Virgin box to record anything more that pops up, but it looks like I’m only going to score highlights shows.

I think what I’d find good is a ~1.5hr Men’s/Women’s Elites combined highlights edit available on the Sunday once it’s all done, I can give the results a swerve for 24hrs and sit down to watch lots of Semi highlights, any highlights from the first 20 down, and then (ideally) the last 8-10 down in both Categories for full runs… But that’s just me.

Getting the Juniors coverage pretty much in full for nowt was a big bonus IMO, it’s useful exposure for younger riders.

TBH I was reasonably happy with the free coverage I get, and I’ve been swithering over paying for GCN+ but I think I will get it ahead of the next round just to have all the big summer grand tour and CX racing coverage as well, but I’m going to have to resurrect another telly with a firestick in the spare room, because will not get control of the main TV for long enough to have livestreaming cycling on all weekend…

I’ll be honest I liked the Semi/Final on the same day format, the points from Run 1 matter enough that their going race pace, the format means there’s a bit of an F1 Qualification feel to it without quite as much pissing about. It opens the possibility up for some upsets and surprises (like the #1 spot in the men’s final)…

I’m not so sure about the protected riders thing, I get that big names returning from injury or who may have missed a season for various reasons can really contribute to the spectacle and the hype, but it did feel like a lot of riders were protected, it wasn’t super clear to me what the criteria were Points scored in the last year? top ten? the UCI just like them more?

I feel like it should be a hard cut-off of 30 riders in the final, if it’s really fastest 30 plus five or six more who got a flat or tore their mech off in their first run, how would you feel as the 31st fastest rider in the Semi’s?
Equipment failures happen in DH, and if there’s no protected riders it might nudge some to look at their setup a bit more to avoid rolling tyres off rims? Dunno… I reckon there’s a discussion to be had there…

Think they got some things right & some wrong.

The questions the interviewer was asking the riders we’re dumb & obvious questions. Nothing to get any insight. Their lack of knowledge of the sport was obvious by how much they were referring to their notes.

The commentators were OK – obviously first time out so need to find their voices & pay more attention to the times, several times riders were green but it took them ages to notice.

I really missed the virtual straight thing Red Bull used to do, along with the section comparisons to see where someone is picking up/losing time.

Not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

All that said – getting it through Sky Q was far more complicated than it needed to be & then once inside the app on the Skybox it was quite hard to find.

The questions the interviewer was asking the riders we’re dumb & obvious questions.

Post race interviews in DH have always been a bit crap, by the nature of the sport at the top level and how close it is, anyone on the podium has had a near perfect run at full pace throughout.

Nobody interviewed will have come back from a position of adversity and rarely is there an obvious tactical points for discussion. Bruni had a line nobody else did, but even that doent get you much interesting interview content.

And half the time they have just grabbed them at the finish line and they are still panting and barely able to get a sentence out.

XC has the potential for a switched on interviewer to discuss various points of the rider’s races.

I also don’t understand why people wouldn’t pay £7 a month either.

This …

but before someone asks I have way too many channel subs between the a family and don’t need to add another one. If they make a day pass type thing I’m in, until then I’m freebies only for DH.

In fact I no longer pay for any subscriptions for anything… I used to have all sorts 90% of which I hadn’t used for years going out every month. Binned the lot and won’t do another.
I’d do a day pass like Ben say’s … but as it happens YT mill were showing it live so I just cycled over.

Also £7 is £7.. if any of it went to the athletes I might also think differently.

I think Bernard Kerr mumbled something about not goproing his qualifying run, because the organizers would own the footage. I quite like to see some footage of the 2nd tier riders, so that was a shame.

I think Bernard Kerr mumbled something about not goproing his qualifying run, because the organizers would own the footage. I quite like to see some footage of the 2nd tier riders, so that was a shame.

Oof, hope he doesn’t hear you calling him second tier.

😀