Pardon My Rant: Flimsy Flanders Coverage
By Jessica | Permalink |
2 comments | April 9th, 2007 | Trackback
I want to make it clear at the outset here that I’m not opposed to cycling coverage being on television. Just in case anyone was wondering. It’s just that I can’t fathom whose brilliant idea it was to show two and a half hours of the U.S. Open Cycling Championships (which would be better called the Virginia Classic or something - the race sounds like it’s putting on airs in its first year) on NBC but only a scant hour of Tour of Flanders coverage on Versus. What in the hell is up with that?
The Virginia race itself wasn’t even four and a half hours long - they really didn’t have to edit out all that much to get it to two and a half hours, did they? And since the beginning of it wasn’t even televise-able due to the horrendous snowy conditions, they might not have edited it at all, for all I know.
Contrast that to one of the best events in the Spring cycling calendar, the Tour of Flanders, which lasted more than seven hours this year and was reduced to less than an hour on Versus. I mean, the coverage aired for an hour, but with all the rider profiles and ads for hockey eating up precious minutes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual race was only onscreen for 40 minutes.
If I’d been racing in Virginia on Saturday, I’d be seriously blissed out about the coverage - I get that. And yet I think even the riders who were there over the weekend might acknowledge that two and a half hours of coverage is a little bit much.
Since the husband and I had watched Flanders live on Cycling.tv that morning (well, the last three hours of it, anyway) I didn’t feel completely cheated out of seeing what turned out to be an exciting race. But for the folks who don’t subscribe to Cycling.tv’s Premium Channel, it seems like Versus can do better. I hear Paris-Roubaix’s coverage this coming Sunday is two hours, which is certainly better, but I’m getting quite used to seeing the races live. And as Podium Cafe asked not too long ago, Versus - Why Not Live? Indeed.
Comments
You’re right, of course, 40 minutes of coverage is better than nothing - and we all remember when there was nothing - and I don’t want to sound like a spoiled child who’s complaining that her slice of the pie doesn’t have quite enough ice cream on it. Still, it’s discouraging to have had better coverage in years past and now have it taken away again. I think many of us were hoping (against hope) that even with Lance out of the sport, they’d still find a good market in the US for cycling coverage. It seems there’s a good market for it to me, but I could be wrong…
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It is hard to complain about cycling being covered at all on US Television when one remembers we once had none, but the Versus coverage of the Spring Classics this year has been sorely lacking. I know who won the Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix, but lack the understanding of how the racing unfolded and how the lead changed throughout. Flanders seemed like we missed most of the climbing sections and Paris Roubaix just seemed very shallow this year. Great wins in both, but what really happened to get us there? The coverage of an hour of TV time that boils down to less than 40 minutes of actual racing does not paint a full picture. I hope that the coverage continues because I would hate to go back to zero, but more would be definitely give us a better picture of how a 6-7 hour race unfolded.