No more ITV Tour de France coverage

Thats not cynicism it is straight sexism – a woman can only be in that to role to titillate men, they have no knowledge or interest in the sport.

Not at all. I think Gabby Logan is a superb presenter (regardless of what you think of the sports she presents on). I also think Dani Rowe is pretty good on Eurosport as an analyst (though I admit some bias here as I was in the same club/team as her when she was a teen and had a couple of winters with her on my rear wheel on club runs). I just don’t rate Ms Chennaoui. If anything I think the sexism is the other way around – I think there are some men who don’t see her failings in the role for sexist reasons.

I like Orla. I think she’s a huge cycling fan and advocate for the women’s side of the sport in particular. I just don’t like the content-light forced bonhomie format of The Breakaway. I’ll usually put on the multi-audio stream instead, even though the pre-race interviews get replayed later during the race.

I thought the writing was probably on the wall for cycling on ITV when they dropped the Vuelta coverage a couple of years ago. Sad times for road cycling’s profile in the UK. I’m no fan of sports-washing teams and otherwise wouldn’t be upset to see Ineos go, but with Sky/Ineos’s worst ever year and continuing decline is this ITV move a bad sign of things to come?

OK, hands up, I missed the negative Orla comments before my last post.

Honestly she’s one of the best things about the ES coverage IMO though, and not just because I’m a divorced dad.

Maybe it helps if you know her from her days on the Cycling Podcast? Yes she has a very modern, mainstream presenting style – but she often makes some of the most perceptive comments in their analysis chats.

I thought the writing was probably on the wall for cycling on ITV when they dropped the Vuelta coverage a couple of years ago. Sad times for road cycling’s profile in the UK.

I thought this at first, but it looks like the rug got pulled from under ITV by ASO and WBD going exclusive for the UK. I bet ITV would have continued if they could have.

If only ASO had been following WBD’s coverage of the DH, they might have had second thoughts eh.