Well with lack of pictures that was a bit of an anti-climax

Yes. Talk about putting a positive spin on things. A total debacle which completely ruined the race for viewers. No doubt the commentators will continue to gloss over the technical failures. Wonder what the cause was.

Woohoohoo!!! Tommeke, Tommeke, Tommeke

Like I said, I'd be willing to bet it's lack of bandwidth due to the crowds on Central London. At the Olympics we didn't lose pictures, but couldn't get any GPS data or timings during the race.

Were the lack of pictures to do with the race having been stopped earlier for 20 minutes so overran the feed booked

Problem is BBC will be bashed for it but it werent their pictures

Good effort by Thomas going solo but the sprint won out in the end.


Hopefully not knackered himself for next week..

It was not even just a lack of pictures the on screen timings where clearly not updating long before the end of the race.

Well done to my mate Tom Boonen.....

I say 'my mate' because quite a long time ago my Dad was staying with me and went out for a walk........he came rushing back 15 later to drag me out because the Tour of Britain was coming past.........and Tom Boonen was the only rider I recognised.......

this would have been about 10 years ago !

loss of pictures was fairly typical........is it just that the British production companies haven't got the expertise in covering live cycling ?........it does seem every race in Britain has some sort of cock-up

To be fair, a few have been weather related though

major cockup on the BBC OB front, I think.

thought they were the world's greatest broadcaster ??

The BBC team went to San Sebastion yesterday. So the crew who covered the Spanish race last year were the only ones available today,

One more major blooper. The pre-start and win interview graphics claimed Tom Boonen is Dutch (NED & blue/white/red flag icon).

Add that to the persistant Geraint Thomas has this won from Box Hill on commentary, it was not a glory day for BBC Sport.

Sticky bottle caught on mobile this afternoon:
Www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20160731_02406433

Yorkshire had more to do with problems with the aircraft and weather. This is very different. The loss of pictures only happened towards the end of the race.

If Cav had been in the race he would have been able to give us a detailed account of what happened from when pictures were lost.

Hopefully the Olympics road cycling event broadcasts will go smoothly.

They jumped the shark with the coronation.

Handy guide to Olympic cycling race times. Obviously the endings will be a bit speculative.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/..._medium=Social

According to the freeview EPG red button 7 has the mens road race on live, hopefully the red button HD streams will be added to the SKY EPG in the next day or so, then I can set what I am going to watch.

And like magic the Olympic channels have just been added 472 - 479

Tour of Utah underway on the Bike Channel.........they're just taking the American commentary

Highlights later tonight and it looks like the remaining stages are starting at 9pm which seems the more normal time

it must be quite early in the morning over there......

77k to go

No spoilers........

Well that was all a bit odd

the commentators were saying that the stage started at about 8.30 AM and it finished about midday

The only thing I can think of is that they were worried about the heat if the race was in the afternoon.........but they were 6000 to 10000 feet up in the mountains so I wouldn't have thought it would be too hot

and all the other stages, which are also in the mountains, are on at the normal time

anyway.......the American coverage was terrific. No idea who the commentators were - Frankie and Tim (?) - but they kept up a good conversation al through and had a slightly different take to the European commentators that we're used to. There was smashing quality pictures and a good race info bar permanently across the bottom of the screen. Half hour gaps between ad breaks

The only quibble was the gap timer which didn't seem to be constant changing but appeared to be updated every 5 minutes so the gaps would all change very suddenly rather than in real time increments.........that's how it appeared

Still.........big thumbs up for the US coverage

World champion Armitstead cleared of anti-doping rule violation by CAS

Women’s road race world champion Lizzie Armitstead has been cleared on an anti-doping rule violation by the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) after UK Anti-Doping had charged her with missing three tests within a 12-month period.

The ruling centre on an anti-doping test which was asserted to have been attempted on August 20 last year, while Armitstead was staying at the team hotel, during the International Cycling Union (UCI) Women’s Road World Cup in Sweden.

The CAS ruled that the doping control officer had not followed required procedures nor made reasonable attempts to locate Armitstead, therefore deeming that there was no negligence on Armitstead’s part and that she had correctly followed procedures.

The Briton, who had missed a test last October and one this June, is one of the favourites for gold in the women’s road race at the Rio 2016.

Shame for her to get caught up in something like this so soon to the start of the games.

Never looks great and will add suspicion to those cynical minds/views...

One might be an accident/not your "fault" but 3 is carless.


The Russians will probably jump all over this sort of verdict.

It was a bit of a WTF moment when I saw it on the BBC news website this morning. How dumb do you have to be to be honest and caught out like that is the view many may have regardless of the facts, if it really is a case of those organising the testing being as incompetent as those supposed to be making sure the athlete takes it. I presume she has a team around her to make sure the testing takes place at the right place at the right time.

From Russia's point of view it does feel political in that how come they are having different rules applied than the rest of the competitors on the exclusion if previously banned. They should have just banned the lot if they can't be sure at this late stage.

The USA would have very few 100m male sprinters in the squad if the same rule was fairly applied to all teams. How many Team GB would be culled that way? It doesn't feel right and I support banning for life if it's proven that cheating was going on and not just poor administration as appears with Armitstead.

The last missed test was due to a family member being ill. We know the family member concerned and they were rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack.

My feeling is there's no carelessness about it, and Armitstead saying she was tested in-competition the following day which proves she is clean is complete nonsense. I'm sure most of us here realise many PEDs, particularly the myriad of modern synthetic concoctions, are only traceable for a short period after use.

And the procedural errors only relate to the first test - what about the other two she missed in a twelve month period? Apparently Armitstead said the reason she missed one of the other tests was because a family emergency caused a sudden change of plans. Not good enough, and ultimately she did not contest she was at fault missing the other two.

However, to avoid an automatic ban which would result from three missed tests. all her lawyers needed to do was to demonstrate procedural errors regarding one of these tests, which they did. I believe she has been extremely lucky, and it leaves a pretty unpleasant taste in the mouth.

I've said on this forum in the past I have serious doubts about her. No smoking gun, but a number of things that raise suspicions imo. Firstly, the dramatic change in her physical appearance from 2012 to the following year, from fresh faced to very spotty and a noticeably more prominent jawline.

Also, after Nicole Cooke's allegations about doping in women's cycling, Armitstead was very quick to assert the sport is clean.

I was also totally unaware that she'd been suspended since 11 July. Why weren't we told? There was certainly no mention of it on any of the multitude of cycling shows in the past 3 weeks.

Thanks. Shows that the process needs improving so the athlete shouldn't be placed in a position to have to defend their name and ability to compete due to the process not being good enough to cope with unexpected situations.

From an outsider it seems obvious that a certain testing window should be allowed, to give flexibility in all but the worst of situations which would then be handled on appeal asap and not months later when it has the potential to be seen as something much worse.

That's the procedure, innocent till proven guilty. Athletes and federations are notified, and given a chance to appeal before the names are released. Sometimes athletes admit it early.

Isn't the biological passport supposed to make it very hard to cheat? Aren't all professional cyclists monitored that way?

If the monitoring is good enough then the athlete shouldn't have to defend themselves additionally, as we saw with Froome providing additional data to try to quell the doubters.

If the monitoring and process around it isn't good enough it should be improved and a hard line taken for breaching it, so we can be more comfortable that we're watching clean athletes, and the clean athletes can rest assured they won't be tarnished.