[Closed] 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.

My personal favourite was when the commentator called him Tim Podcock

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.

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

I disagree - is road cycling coverage 'dumbed down'? A mountain biker might few use a few technical terms, but that happens in most of the sports covered.

The culture wars continue.

You know, if this highlights anything, it's how Rob has grown into the role of being the UK's (un)official mountain bike race commentator. I can't really imagine watching any XC or DH without him and the BBC missed a trick (perhaps his RB contract prohibits it, who knows?) by not getting him involved.

Having said that, I don't want to get into slating folk for what must be a pretty hard thing to do, I don't think I could talk sensibly for a few hours about a race; and probably knowing there's a) not much love for what you're doing, even if your best and b) not much of an audience at that time in the morning for what is still a pretty niche event.

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.

I disagree – is road cycling coverage ‘dumbed down’? A mountain biker might few use a few technical terms, but that happens in most of the sports covered.

No but the only people who watch road cycling outside of the Tour de France are people interested in / knowledgeable about road cycling. Therefore, when commentating on Paris-Nice for example (a race that virtually no-one outside of "the cycling community" will know about), you can talk technical stuff as much as you want. Although even then it's not exactly thrill a minute stuff, personally I like some info about the scenery.

The Olympics is completely different. People watch it because it's the Olympics, not because they're actually interested in or knowledgeable about canoe slalom or handball or horse prancing.

I was working in the velodrome during London 2012 and it was a completely different crowd to the sort of people you get at a Revolution or a Track World Cup. A lot didn't have a clue about it, they just wanted to be part of the Games, cheer on the home team and enjoy the atmosphere. As a result the commentary had to be different, it had to go back to basics and state what to a track cycling fan would be simple basic facts.

Issues with the MTB commentary are that it did neither of those things; it was not detailed enough for MTB fans nor basic / entertaining enough for armchair spectators who'd turned it on going "what sport is on today then?" It was basically just drivel and cliches.

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.

Nick Craig? Oli Beckingsale? Both GB MTB Olympians..

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'm not getting why there seems to be so many posts complaining about the MTB at the Olympics. GB won a Gold at it, so why are we now moaning about bits that make no odds to the outcome?

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.

I didn't think they were that bad tbh. Yeah they weren't experts but it didn't detract from the viewing (unlike when the BBC had the DH world champs at VDS). The Tim Podcock bit was funny but even they had a laugh about that.

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

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…….

The BBC didn't get the rights to do their own coverage so just bought in host broadcaster coverage, Commentary team was Rochelle Gilmore (who the BBC used to get in for road racing coverage and who I was EXTREMELY glad to see was not part of the BBC olympic road race commentary team) and a saffer (possibly kiwi) guy who I don't recognise sorry

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.

They would rather show the rider with a minute lead cruise to victory than a hard fought battle for 3rd-4th place.

F1 used to be accused of that too - they'd focus on the 2 cars at the front of the race and the remaining 18 would get no airtime. A rule was brought in at some point to say that all teams needed a minimum quotient of coverage per race.

The TT this morning had a similar issue, for some reason the camera remained on Ion Izaguirre Insausti as he suffered from cramp and basically parked up. It was just embarrassing. Chris Boardman said as much in the commentary; there's nothing to say about watching someone sit up, visibly in pain and then pedalling along at 10mph and it was just awkward for all concerned.

So yeah, sometimes the commentators can only talk about what is actually on the screen and if the producer hasn't done a decent job in picking out some exciting action, they're a bit stuffed.

 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

The duo commentating this time were absolutely bobbins

Hopefully Discovery/ BBC will both invest in finding new talent

The first 10 minutes without commentary in the women's race was better than the rest

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

The commentary was piss poor. It was even worse in the Women's than the Men's.

Just cliche riddled drivel. If i had a fiver for every time Rochelle had said "She's such a strong rider" I could bought a sodding Super Calibre.

The BBC have got Chris Boardman on the commentary team why didn't they use him?

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.

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

yes it was

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.

Bart was busy doing the Dutch commentary

I thought Bart was managing the Dutch team? Claudio Caluori was on the photos with the Swiss XC ladies so I assume he had a role in their setup on the day.

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.

They'd have to drug Warner to bring his level of excitement down to BBC-acceptable. Part of the joy of Olympic commentary is the utter rubbish spouted about pretty much every niche sport. I cannot wait for the Climbing to start. 🙂

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.

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.

Others may disagree...

Rochelle Gilmour was alright co-commentating on the women’s MTB,

You have a really low bar for "alright"

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...

For whatever reason Claudio switched from UK Eurosport commentary to the German Eurosport commentary team, according to the RB text at the beginning of the WC DH.

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?

Martin Ashton would have been a great addition for a whole host of reasons. He’s a talented, knowledgable and engaging broadcaster.

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.

Interesting that the BBC had their own team for the road/TT but didn't bother (and took the Eurosport feed) for the MTB. It would be interesting to see the respective viewing figures for the different events.

As for who should do it... um, Martyn Ashton and Tracy Moseley.

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.

Personally I think Minaar should try and eek another couple of years out of his downhill career but use the time to brush up on his xc knowledge as it was a bit lacking 😀

Double post 🙈

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

That doesn't always happen though. The skateboarding wasn't in the least dumbed down. As my 8yo put it in response to a stream of mostly unfamiliar words: "what the heck?"

It's a minority sport that in the grand scheme of things no one gives a toss about. If it wasn't for the red button, and folks knowing that a Brit had won, the viewing figures would've been lower than GB news!

Unsure if the CBC (Canadian commentators) were the same as the British coverage but it wasn't too bad. Some knowledge but of course they missed many of the intracies from presumably not keeping up though the UCI xco seasons.

My personal favourite was when the commentator called him Tim Podcock

To be fair, he caught it immediately and made a joke of himself about it.

Rochelle Gilmore, just did a Google images search, not many of her actually riding a bike.

I think the initial issue stemmed from thinking it was a BBC commentary.

You watch the first few minutes of racing wondering how they haven't possibly noticed Tom straight into top ten and Evie in the top five. So you conclude they are clueless and then every other mistake and random statement starts to grate.

However the reality was they were just bland bipartisan background noise so the general public knew the name of whoever was at the front. Wonder what they would find to say about horse dancing? 🙂

I guessed Bart would have been doing NL TV. But yes, BB and Rob Warner make an unlikely but effective XCO commentary duo and would have been perfect.

Nobody could accuse Rob Warner of providing dull lifeless cometary.
I'd have him covering more sports. He'd make some of them waaaaaay more interesting.
Just picture Rob on team dressage

Rochelle Gilmore, just did a Google images search, not many of her actually riding a bike.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochelle_Gilmore

Maybe look at something other than just pictures? Very well known in women's road racing, founded and owned the Wiggle-Honda team, Commonwealth Games gold in the road event.

Having said that, I've never liked her as a co-commentator, she's done a lot of work for the BBC on women's road (e.g. World Championships).

I haven't watched any Olympic coverage, of any sport, but it is odd which sports get chosen to have real knowledgeable and competent presenters, and which do not. I imagine there are some good people who would do it for not much of a fee, and these days they wouldn't even have to be at the event at all.

I think Rob and Bart in the men's event - in an ideal world an ex-rider with similar palmares for the women's - Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesja? In a perfect world get Jolanda Neff on board when she retires she comes across as a cheery person with plenty of personality, and is encouraging and knowledgeable.

I haven’t watched any Olympic coverage, of any sport, but it is odd which sports get chosen to have real knowledgeable and competent presenters, and which do not. I imagine there are some good people who would do it for not much of a fee

It's a very closed circle, commentary. Once established, you tend to be used again and again and certainly the UCI jas a list of approved commentators (which is why Anthony McCrossan appears so much in CX and track, he gets flown around the world to commentate on events).

There aren't many sportspeople who can transition easily from competing to talking about it - to many of them the competition thing just sort of happens and they find it very difficult to describe what they're doing and why which then carries over into describing what they're seeing on screen, it's an incredibly difficult skill.

But the problem with it being such a niche area and such a closed group that once you're established you just stay there, even if you're shit. See Hugh Porter as an example of someone who massively outlived his best before date.

I always feel that I have to defend sports commentators because, quite frankly, cycling itself is pretty dull. Especially the more pedally variants.

Yep, imagine covering the Tour de France and having to waffle away for 5 hours a day (nice church, was built in 1671 and use for....... etc,.)

The best move ITV4 made was getting in Alexei Sayle (a keen cyclist) to have an informal chat for an hour while the race was running.

Yep, imagine covering the Tour de France and having to waffle away for 5 hours a day (nice church, was built in 1671 and use for……. etc,.)

An english Ashes series will top this. 25 9hr days, half of which will be raining and therefore no play whatsoever. No changing scenery.

The best move ITV4 made was getting in Alexei Sayle (a keen cyclist) to have an informal chat for an hour while the race was running.

The first 2 minutes that he was on I was like "WTF?!"
Then I realised it was hilarious. Agreed, perfect move.

It was poor - and just lazy.
The BBC just took the world feed - fine; Gerald de Kock does the Cape Epic, however he needs a XC expert alongside to explain the technicalities/nuances of the sport. Not an ex track/road rider, who knows diddly squat about the sport.

As for Eurosport - really disappointing; again taking the world feed. By contrast for the road races/ITT events they used their experts from GCN, and were trackside in the build up, and afterwards.
So, why not use the GMBN guys? They treated the MTB events as a second class sport.....

And while I'm moaning (I apologise) a lot of the cycling journalists only bothered mentioning the MTB race because Pidcock & MvdP were riding it; and didn't bother with the women's race.

And while I’m moaning (I apologise) a lot of the cycling journalists only bothered mentioning the MTB race because Pidcock & MvdP were riding it; and didn’t bother with the women’s race.

That's been depressingly standard in a lot of journalism. Cycling Weekly used to routinely do 2 pages of coverage of the Men's race detailing the timeline, the breakaway and the result. Then there'd be a paragraph at the end going "In the Women's race, Vos won in a sprint finish".

Mountain biking seems one of the better sports in this regard.
Xc gets equal billing, DH gets les airtime due to the reduced number of entrants but quality wise is the same.
Results/summary articles seem to give a fairly equal report.
EWS coverage seems a tad male heavy this year but there is the Rude-Moir battle.

It’s a minority sport that in the grand scheme of things no one gives a toss about.

But Pidcock is a bit of a superstar in more than one cycle sport and rides for one of the biggest cycling teams ever, so to comment that he's a bit jammy for winning the race would suggest that the person making the comment is a bit jammy for getting any sort of 'expert opinion' gig.

It's frustrating, especially when the BBC seemed able to pull in skateboarding and surfing specialists to co-commentate but didn't bother with our sport.

Was just flipping through red button to see what sports were on, ended up watching a few minutes of gymnastics. Girl nails a routine (to my uneducated eye it looks pretty spot on).

Commentator: "Oh she won't be happy with that at all, that was terrible. The extra spin she had to do to recover from coming up short there will have cost her dearly, the judges will penalise her heavily for that. Such a disappointment."

I'm assuming the commentators know what they're talking about... 😉

Commentator: “Oh she won’t be happy with that at all, that was terrible. The extra spin she had to do to recover from coming up short there will have cost her dearly, the judges will penalise her heavily for that. Such a disappointment.”

Diving commentary was similar, they had experts commentating for experts it seemed, I couldn't for the life of me spot what the disastrous and shaming mistake was that one pair had made 😕

I couldn’t for the life of me spot what the disastrous and shaming mistake was that one pair had made

Diving: Small splash is good, big splash is bad - that's basically all you need to know. 🙂

I thought not having UK commentary for the MTB but having it for the road race was an interesting choice. In this day and age fewer and fewer people watch tele live and instead stream it after the 1st broadcast. I thought the BBC would have looked at the minority sports like MTB, Road Cycling, etc and taken into consideration the chances of the UK picking up a gold in an event and therefore more people watching the event after it has happened. They obviously didn't do that as we had a near zero chance of a road race gold but a really strong chance of a mtb gold.

Commentary for the BMX - oh dear God. The bloke might actually have been Rob Warner, couldn't really tell. However having Shanaze Reade simply yelling "come on Kye/Beth, all the way, all the way, YES!" wasn't commentary in the slightest...

Cringey.

(much as I admire Shanaze for her achievements in both BMX and track, commentary is clearly not one of her strengths).

Anyway, track cycling starts next week - wonder how that'll be? Assume it'll be Simon Brotherton, Chris Boardman and maybe Chris Hoy / Jo Rowsell-Shand.

the bloke was Ed Leigh, former world air guitar champion (*Under his alias Satan Whoppercock), snowboarder and presenter of BBC's Ski Sunday. Snowboarder Tim Warwood was doing some of the BMX interviews too

However having Shanaze Reade simply yelling “come on Kye/Beth, all the way, all the way, YES!” wasn’t commentary in the slightest…

I absolutely understand what you mean, but I quite enjoyed the energy of basically just having someone who's a massive fan* yelling COME ON. I doubt it would be so fun if the did that in all sports though.

*I know Shanaze Reade is more qualified than 'massive fan' but that's how she came across.

I'm not sure there's much more you can do as a co-commentator on such a short event. Hardly time for expert analysis or explaining the nuances of the discipline. At least it brought a sense of drama to what is unfortunately, a pretty sterile environment.

I thought not having UK commentary for the MTB but having it for the road race was an interesting choice. In this day and age fewer and fewer people watch tele live and instead stream it after the 1st broadcast. I thought the BBC would have looked at the minority sports like MTB, Road Cycling, etc and taken into consideration the chances of the UK picking up a gold in an event and therefore more people watching the event after it has happened. They obviously didn’t do that as we had a near zero chance of a road race gold but a really strong chance of a mtb gold.

As I said earlier, road & track are traditional (old school) cycling sports. I still get the sense the MTB is viewed as not 'proper cycling' - so they can use any coverage provided. For both road & track, BBC/Eurosport will use their own dedicated experts. Imagine using a football commentator and a MTB-er for the road races & track - it would be ridiculous.....That's basically what happened with the MTB races.

Ned Boulting was a football reporter when first asked to cover the Tour de France...

Imagine using a football commentator and a MTB-er for the road races & track – it would be ridiculous…..That’s basically what happened with the MTB races.

Commentary is its own thing - if Mike Costello (boxing, athletics) did the mountain biking it would be excellent because he is excellent. Ideally paired with a discipline expert but having someone skilled in the art of commentary makes the biggest difference.

Ned Boulting was a football reporter when first asked to cover the Tour de France…

Yes but he started by doing rider interviews and only much later moved into commentary by which time he'd learned a huge amount about the sport. It's relatively rare that he's wrong these days and when he is, he's quick to own up to it. As Garry says ^^, being a commentator is a relatively broad skill, not necessarily sport specific so long as there is some specific expertise alongside (and/or the commentator has done a lot of research into the various backgrounds and histories of the participants).

However, it is a skill and just because someone was a good cyclist does not make automatically them a good cycling commentator.

Incredible - The BBC have hired the man who usually commentates on his dogs to commentate on the actual RUNNING 😂

Diving commentary was similar, they had experts commentating for experts it seemed, I couldn’t for the life of me spot what the disastrous and shaming mistake was that one pair had made 😕

Ivm not certain but do diving and gymnastics not judge against a submission?
Like you say "this is my routine" and the judges judge the technical difficulty of the routine and the execution?

The commentary was terrible. If they'd just watched this year's worls cups it would have helped. I wonder if at the planning stage they expected no male uk mtb athlete and no female medal contender.

Europsport sailing commentary is excellent

It absolutely has to be Rob Warner, but with the caveat that he has to put some effort in to get up to speed on the competitors he doesnt know, and has co commentator who does know them, and can call him out on it all the time and call him a pillock.

A Kaleb to his Clarkson.

The commentators on the BMX (both disciplines) were good though, particularly the freestyle.

Did a great job of spotting the tricks and explaining the proceedings in an accessible but not dumbed-down way. Excited but not as inanely jingoistic as much of the BBC coverage.

Well only a couple of weeks late, but here’s the answer (needless to say it’s nsfw)