Lenzerheide DH World Cup: How Was It For You?

SPOILERS. The racing itself was as amazing and entertaining as ever, but how did the new format and the new broadcasters fare? It’s time for some ‘hot takes’.

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By ben_haworth

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https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/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.

Couldn’t get btsport to work. Paid for GCN+, but that only worked on a laptop that then had to be cast to the tele.  All in, a pretty faffy and duff set-up with rubbish picture sometimes.  Yeah, the racing is worth it, but the faff, well it’s nearly enough to put me off.  Maybe it is enough to put me off and I will cancel GCN+ shortly and just read about the racing on Pinkbike on monday.

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.

Said it in the other thread but I think the protected riders thing from semi-finals to finals is going to cause some controversy later in the season, especially in the women’s field.

In the next race, if both Vali Holl and Marine Cabirou crash in the semis, Vali will be able to go on and collect points in the final while Marine has to go hit the showers.

What happens when riders start getting injured (or decide not to race all the races but win the ones they do decide to do) and suddenly Marine would have been in contention for an overall win had she been protected in an earlier round?

I can’t help but feel this has the potential to get very messy and unfair.

Edit: does anyone have an up to date article on the new rules.  I’m using a PB article from about 6 months ago that doesn’t seem to bear much relation to what we’re actually seeing now:

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/the-ucis-major-rule-changes-for-the-2023-dh-world-cup.html

Looks like a semi win is worth 100 and a final win is worth 250 now rather than the 150/200 it was in the article I read.

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

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

I couldnt get it on Sky Q , ended up watching the live feed on YouTube

I thought the camera angles were a bit naff in places, too zoomed in on the rider so you got no context of the terrain or where they were going/had been.

I still do not get the point of all the extra furniture on the course, complete waste of money and resource.

Didnt like the commentary, bloody foreigners trying their best to emulate an English man who has done the job very well in the past.

Overall surprisingly not different from what was there before, and therefore I think it will loose viewers not increase them.

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.

I thought all the changes to the format were fine, different not better, but fine either way. I watched all the free stuff 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. TBH that seems to have worked for me.

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.

Coverage equal to or better than redbull – but still room for improvements.

I’m sure we were promised full coverage. Elite men were well under 3 minutes so even allowing for a start gate shot and big skid in the finish coral should have been possible. Did the organisiers/film crew not realise how quick they were going to do it?

And just like before, they have taken the “easy” way out by just showing the start gate on delay and cutting out the first section of track, rather than figuring out what would be the key interesting parts of the track.

As a result, missed Kolb’s crash, which was critical.

Post race interviews an improvement over the low bar set in prior years (in DH, not a huge fan of those on the XCC)

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

Also not a fan of protected riders.

I know why the pro teams and the broadcasters want it; but as pointed out by someone else in a different thread, its basically giving free points to people, based on them already having lots of points. (or will be, starting next race; currently rewards being good in 2022)

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.

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

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.

Didn’t see it. Won’t see it I guess. Too many subs coming out already 😐

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.

Also not a fan of protected riders.

Yeahbut…Not anything to do with new broadcasters? and not new anyway protected riders has been a UCI things for ages now. I like the new coverage, they have XC nailed, it’s much better coverage, and the drone shots are amazing. Ric and Bart make a good team. Top marks

The DH; I like the Junior coverage, well done everyone, really great to see the young riders, this a massive step forwards. Course coverage is better than Redbull I think, but still some gaps and no drone? Thought the Ric and Cedric where pretty good together actually, and hopefully they’ll just become more comfy with each other and better with time. Arena interviews were same, still the same daft questions, but then DH riders not known for their sparkling wit either, so evens I guess

Overall pretty happy, I’ve a GCN+ account and cast the coverage live to the telly without any (well, not many) glitches.

@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).

Yeahbut…Not anything to do with new broadcasters? and not new anyway protected riders has been a UCI things for ages now.

Is this thread just about the broadcast quality?  Weren’t the new rules brought in to improve the broadcast experience?

Anyway, protected rider status in qualification is one thing.  In my mind qualification is just about riders proving they should be there.  Riders in the top 10 women and top 20 men have already proven they should be there so it makes sense not to risk a major upset in the overall.

As I said though, it’s now effectively the top 10 men and top 4 women.  Plenty men in the 10-20 range and women in the 5-10 range who have proven they should be there.

It’s going to make difference at some point in the season and not in a good way, I reckon.

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.

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.

Top 4.  Like I said earlier, if Vali Holl and Marine Cabirou  both crash in the semi-finals next week Vali will be able to go onto the finals and pick up points while Marine goes home.

Really seems unfair to me.

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

Yeah, protected riders isn’t new but it has been changed. Quite what part of the new format is due to broadcaster, and what is due to UCI is not clear.

Greg Minaar has 32 points from Lenzerheide. Flatting in Semis, getting a free pass to finals where he flatted again.

Greg is protected due to finishing 10th overall last year, on 623 points.

Daprella, who finished 11th last year, on 620 points, would have receieved 0 points had he experienced Greg’s problems this week.

Those 3 points from last year have turned into 32 already.

In contrast, the loser here is Taylor Vernon who finished last in finals (he was also among the handful of riders who coasted to the bottom following crashes or punctures), but as there were 31 riders rather than the 30 that there would have been without Greg getting his free pass. Points are only awarded for the 30 riders*.

Taylor received 0 points for his finals run despite qualifying in the top 30. (24th, for which he did receive 36 points).

*and looking at the effort Greg put in to ride down on that flat, I wager he was well aware of the situation (Taylor had already gone by this point) and knew how much of a difference 30 to 31st would make.

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

Gave up and went and did something else instead.

Bought the GCN+ offer a couple months ago and it all worked well for us – have a micro PC driving the tellybox so no issues technical wise. Out biking so watched the full replays at our leisure (XC and DH).

 

Commentators did OK but they seem to tell you what you can see on the screen and not too much of the back story, pit talk, insider info going on (as I think we used to get).

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.

I watched the XCC and DHI live and the XCO on catch up, on discovery plus through Sky Q. It all worked perfectly. I think Ric and Bart work well. Bart is great anyway, which helps. Not sure about Cedric but it’s early days.

All in all, it was much better than I was expecting.

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…

Watched all the XCC, XCO and DH some live some on catchup on Eurosport, no problems with feeds. I thought the new format was really good and interesting and can see why they’ve done it, brings it much more in line with the XC and brings more coverage so all good. The XC stuff is always good since the XCC came in and loses nothing as Bart is still there and Ric had calmed down! Nino what a legend!

DH coverage was very good I thought but commentators need work, Ric needs to calm down as others have said and drop some of the more derivative Warner-esque comments! Hopefully will settle in to it, Cedric would not be missed though liked him as a crazy french rider etc etc but he’s like a weird extreme sports euro cliche and don’t think he will work there his comments were all a bit distracting (a bit too “**** yeah, extreme sports dude”) and not incisive enough be better with a more current rider i believe?? I miss Rob Warner a bit but not enough to distract from the whole thing. All good though and can’t wait for the worlds here in Scotland! Although for the first time ever i will be choosing to go and watch the XC in the borders and not the DH

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.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Felt like a bit of overload with juniors then qualis then the main event.</p>
YouTube coverage was good and I found a free stream for the finals. I’m not paying and if I don’t find a stream next time it won’t bother me

Commentators were decent. Missed lauren from redbull doing the interviews.

/Div

Div div got to love this garbage forum  🤣

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.

yes agree also about the interviews pre and post unless they’re conducted by former riders etc they tend to be a little excruciating at times, the interviewers really need to do more research as they clearly have little knowledge of the sport or personalities beyond their briefing notes, this should improve as we move on? Like Josh Carlson though he should replace Cedric in the booth! then maybe get Ben Cathro on the course analysis / interviews? Brendan Fairclough i reckon would be good there too!

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.

Just back from Lenzerheine now… Obviously cant comment on the On line commentary…. Its always been a favorite. Close to home and DH/XCC/XCO all on the same day. Lenzerheide is a nice place to be as well.

Enjoyed the format. The semi finals idea kept the action rolling. Great atmosphere on the day too.

Chatted to a rider from Wales, he said he enjoyed the course but the semi’s ramped up injury risk….
Low key advertising and netting not Shimano tape was good. It all seems less commercial on banners etc etc. What the hell is Whoop ? No Merc vans anywhere.

Event village was great…. easy to get around. What is always staggering (and I work on MTB events in Switzerland), is the attitude to dealing with garbage. Having worked at Fort William DH for many years, the place is awash with crap at the end. The polar opposite of this weekend. Almost spotless.

XC /XCO was also great to be on the course and the new taping/netting made viewing better IMHO. Also I hope less crap binned, more rewound on bobbins to use again.

The crowd really lifted Nino who raced off the front for a change instead of sitting in second hanging on a wheel until he could pounce.

Loved the whole event.

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.

One thing that was absent for me (thankfully) was stupid loud chainsaws

Have they banned them?

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.

😀