I don’t remember the French coming back. Their production had ended with the commentators’ ‘escape’.
For the record, John Degenkolb came up the hill to win. The changing tent had been washed away in the tempest, so he was guided to the rear of the podium by Valentina to await the call to the stage. Some fresh kit arrived and, without a thought, he stripped off completely to change. Valentina came into the commentary position in a state of shock.
‘You OK, Valentina? You look terrified. Did you have a bad time out there?’ I enquired.
‘No. It’s not the weather. And it is not a bad thing that I have seen. But yes, I am in shock. . .’
‘Why, what’s happened to you?’
‘I say this only to you. John Degenkolb. He is in my top . . . er . . . one!’
Those calf muscles! I think he's smuggling frozen chickens!
‘And now we return to our live transmission with announcers Carol-Tone Kurby and Daniel Lloyd. And I can tell you that the contestants are just heading for a big action point of the day . . .’
This was a genuine throw to us from Steve, the continuity guy, on an American cable network as they returned from an ad break. I am not joking.
OK, this ‘announcer’ hasn’t heard riders called ‘contestants’ before or since, but it was indicative of how cycling is viewed stateside. It ain’t big bananas. Our American cousins are too infatuated with baseball, basketball and their version of football.
They don’t really get cycling. Despite the fact that there are more cyclists in the US than just about anywhere, it’s not box office and it rates poorly.
They can’t get their head round the idea that the overall winner of a race may not have even won a stage himself. I do have a bit of sympathy with this view. Anyway, when it comes to paying for the broadcasting rights of races like the Tour of California, Utah, or the now defunct US Pro Challenge in Colorado, the production gig usually goes out to tender. And the winner, who gets to bring the race to an international audience, has, in the past, been the lowest bidder. It’s a cost thing.
Cycling is not cheap and globally often has government backing. Not in the USA. This means they don’t have enough helicopters, relay equipment or production skills and as a result the races are always losing pictures. On the US Pro Challenge we lost pictures so frequently that broadcasters pulled from the event. It died in 2015. I’m not surprised.
In 2011, George Hincapie was the hero of the race launched by Lance Armstrong the year before. Although George was a doper he was a fully ’fessed-up doper, which, in the strange world of cycling, makes the fact he cheated kind of alright – with some at least. His misdemeanours were ignored in the daily stage reports. Incidentally, the only way to cure a varicose vein is to pull the whole thing out and he wanted to keep the blood supply there. So he and the bunch of grapes on his left calf rode on together. Fair enough.
Hincapie is an all-American, square-jawed jock. On Stage 2 of the 2011 race, he was a striking physical presence as he pushed on towards Aspen. He flew down off a big escarpment heading into town, leading the race in an epic battle against several riders, including his compadres Tejay van Garderen and Tom Danielson along with two Colombians. Then – nothing. The pictures stopped and the director cut away to, you guessed it, the finish line and shots of spectators drinking microbrewery beer. We had the usual loop of images, this time about 15 minutes long. That is a long run of airtime without any action.
My director at Eurosport told me, ‘Sorry, commentators, we have nothing to replace this programme – you have to keep going.’
It’s at moments like this I actually thrive, partly because I find it amusing rather than stressful. Other commentators find it terrifying, but I’m happy to engage with whatever pictures I have to work with and talk about, in this case, microbreweries and hot dogs, for an hour or so if necessary. I have no fear of it because I feel the audience is with you at moments like this. And like a comedian on stage, confidence is king . . . so on we ploughed with a few gags here and a Twitter chat there as sketchy reports popped up on the web from the team cars themselves. Essentially we had nothing. So I began to create scenarios of what might be happening. The audience lapped it up. To avoid boredom, I started referring to George Hincapie as Gorgeous George, the name of a famous post-war American wrestler. I was busy shooting the breeze when bam! the pictures were back and George Hincapie emerged from the trees leading a five-up sprint. We snapped back into action with my previous comments locked in place: ‘ . . . and here comes Gorgeous George.’
And so it went on to the line. George won.
You’d think the American fans watching on hooky feeds might have appreciated my perhaps over-familiar tones towards one of their sons. Oooooh no! Twitter lit up:
‘Stop all this gay talk.’
‘Gay is not the way!’
‘Take your gayness way back to Europe, man!’
Yep, we lost a few that day. No harm done.
‘He likes a boiled egg… Actually, I just made that up.’
COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT
Like many pro riders, Dan Lloyd never really had a proper job until he stopped riding. By then he was 29. Since then, he’s got very grown-up and a bit more sensible. A bit. As with
