Watch the TdF Femmes with Hannah and Ant, their commentary is far superior in my mind.
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All of this, but with one exception I do think it’s time for Phil to retire. At 81, he’s just a little too foggy sometimes and Bob is often correcting many of his mistakes.
I loved Pat Summeral, Vern Lundquist, Keith Jackson, etc. Those were the legendary voices for NFL, NCAA basketball and football of my childhood. But there comes a time when legends need to step aside.
Keep Christian on the Moto, keep Bob as a commentator, Have Phil back in the studio for a few more years if needed. Just not sure who steps in for the ‘play by play’. I don’t think that’s a natural fit for Bob.
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They buy someone from HBO/TNT; they’re already ‘borrowing’ Ant & Hannah
For accuracy and professionalism absolutely. But i don’t give much thought for that in my TdF coverage. Love Bobke, Phil with all his flaws, VdV on the moto, I mean do I care that it’s a crucial point and what the peleton are shaping up to do or do I want the history behind an 11th century monastery? Monastery all day. Tour is too long for accurate cycling-centric coverage for 3 weeks.
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I’ll take Phil with his flaws. Most of us don’t count on him for accuracy anyway. For me, his iconic voice is like pleasant background music.
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And Bob Roll
I’ve grown to not be able to take Liggett over the years. His commentary is mostly inane, hype type of stuff not based on anything.
Early in the Tour he was going on about how Pogacar and Vindegaard were best of friends off the bike, and Roll had to put him in his place about that.
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I thought having VDV in the commentary box the last day was maybe a test run for him replacing Liggett.
I did notice him multiple times defer to Roll to identify a rider, so I think someone has said something to him about his misidentification problem.
Phil continues to do a great job narrating my rides, especially when climbing.
I sometimes hear Sherwen (RIP) too.
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My wife and I watch far too much bike racing, but Ant calling a Wednesday spring semi classic is my favorite. He is very in tune with the teams and riders, has relevant information on the day’s racing, what plans are looking like for the coming races and never gets all hyped because a rider had to tap the brakes for a corner.
Even for what has to be one of the greats passes for a win in recent cyclocross history, his call was so well delivered.
He has also taught me history lessons about the various cemeteries in the Flanders fields and all sorts of other road side novelties.
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I first heard Anthony a handful of years ago when NBCSports was broadcasting weekly CX races on their "non-main’ channels … after hearing only Phil & Paul & Bob, or Al Trautwig, I didn’t realize what good play-by-play/commentary could be WRT cycling
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Whomever the guy and gal doing the Tour Femmes, I can’t stand them. I turn the sound off or wait to watch The Move with Ali, Mari and Lance.
I didn’t know what a Tadej Pogacar was. I clicked on it thinking it’s some kind of new vehicle from India.
Imagine my shock and horror.
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I’ve been here long enough to know that it’s been established that professional cycling has absolutely nothing to do with triathlon.
You’ve been here long enough to know that you should take this shit to the tri forum.
Tadej announced today he won’t be racing the Vuelta.
I was on Montmartre on Sunday and Wout’s attack in which he dropped Pogacar was incredible. You could feel that Wout was not going to be caught. Incredible performance. It was raining pretty hard but stopped by lap 3 and that was decisive.
One thing that surprised me … Pogacar made it look easy. Everyyone else was clearly dying … unless they were at the back and didn’t care - in which case they were slapping hands and having fun.
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