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*Wynge
I assume you're referring to Kate Mason. She used to work for Sky TV and host The Football Ramble podcast for them. It proved unpopular and she lost the gig. She puts this down to sexism, but I have to say the more I listen to her the more I doubt that.
She's now entering her 3rd year in the job and as far as I can see she knows no more about the sport now than she did when she asked Nina Hoffman if she'd be wearing the rainbow stripes to the bar that night (after Nina had won a WC race and Vali was wearing the stripes) and not knowing who Tahnee was.
Having said that she's probably on par with most of their presenters, it's no better in their road cycling coverage.
I think it’s time for more riders and teams to publicly air frustrations.
Changes under redbull
80 to 60 (not sure Red Bull was even behind it)
Protected riders after Aaron won dropping early. They simply wanted the best riders by standings on the broadcast.
Changes under eso
Paywall
No protection
Intro of semis live on YouTube
Semis no longer broadcast
Semis now a qualifying 2 replay.
60 to 30 men. Not sure we were even hitting the limits in the women’s field most races under redbull.
10 women to 15 women.
Entirely new, complicated way of being able to participate which fundamentally change the nature of the sport. Eliminating many long running teams and forcing the remaining to grow their programs.
Televised juniors. So far it’s been a positive I think. But I also worry about if that extra attention on literal children is healthy. Especially in a sport where you could easily have someone paralyzed or even killed on camera.
no tape. Which is fine as long as you can define the track and administer a fair race. Once guys can ride off the track on camera and qualify then well why define the track at all. Also remember that wierd netting that was obviously dangerous but it took a while for them to stop using it.
people running on track with no rerun cause it would effect their broadcast
Cancelled a race due to poor track prep.
Whoop all up in your face. Remember when the title sponsor was one of europes largest car companies and they just had a black and silver logo in the background of some shots. But hey eso says those non endemic sponsors are on their way.
One of the best commentary teams in sports to one of the most mediocre.
Hey we’re gonna do full runs and it’s going to totally take the sport to a new level. Oh wait never mind. Oh yeah so why’d we do all of the above? Wasn’t the whole point of cutting the field was because you needed full runs of every rider to be professional and bring in sponsors?
Then you look at what they’ve done with enduro and it’s the same story. They basically introduced a ton of changes including an entirely additional motorized category to just go back to what they fucking began with. And in the process killed the interest in the sport. Instead of a healthy ews and a growing dh series in a good place we got one on life support and the other treading water because one organization keeps implementing changes that are in literally nobody’s interest.
And I think everyone who expresses concerns will be happily the first to eat their hat and say I am so happy I was wrong. But you can also be a fan or a participant in this sport and express criticism. And I don’t think wyn is the only professional who is expressing concerns and criticisms at this point. Even Aaron said something along the lines of not understanding their business plan on a podcast and he’s in their productions. And the fact he and vital are doing a full national series and part time wcs shows a lot about the general sentiment and mood around which scene is growing.
Let’s see which race win capable rider they ask into the booth this week cause they didn’t qualify so they can have a 50 minute intro to a 1.5 hr female broadcast.
You forgot that they dropped the elite women's field from 15 to 10 riders before putting it back up (and tried to spin it that they were doing something positive rather than just returning it to the RB numbers).
Could we just have all the general complaining over UCI/WB/officials in some other thread please?
Could we also agree, that most changes were for the better or don't event matter that much?
Paywall
better (because better quality than before)
No protection
better
Intro of semis live on YouTube
better
Semis no longer broadcast
semis don't exist anymore so i guess better?
Semis now a qualifying 2 replay.
better
60 to 30 men. Not sure we were even hitting the limits in the women’s field most races under redbull.
WAY BETTER!
10 women to 15 women.
WAY BETTER
Entirely new, complicated way of being able to participate which fundamentally change the nature of the sport. Eliminating many long running teams and forcing the remaining to grow their programs.
more complicated but better quality for worldcup
Televised juniors. So far it’s been a positive I think. But I also worry about if that extra attention on literal children is healthy. Especially in a sport where you could easily have someone paralyzed or even killed on camera.
WAY WAY WAY BETTER!!!!
no tape. Which is fine as long as you can define the track and administer a fair race. Once guys can ride off the track on camera and qualify then well why define the track at all. Also remember that wierd netting that was obviously dangerous but it took a while for them to stop using it.
worse (but tape is annoying so both solutions are mediocre)
people running on track with no rerun cause it would effect their broadcast
well! that's fucked
Cancelled a race due to poor track prep.
local organisers fault! (or lack of quality control, but no changes fault. you could ad in brook laying in the dirt in mount mtstanne was it red bulls fault?)
Whoop all up in your face. Remember when the title sponsor was one of europes largest car companies and they just had a black and silver logo in the background of some shots. But hey eso says those non endemic sponsors are on their way.
worse. but i take some whoop ads anyday if i know the money is flowing. so doesn't even matter that much.
One of the best commentary teams in sports to one of the most mediocre.
worse but they already changed and keep improving. (neko and aaron are amazing, finally bart got ditched)
The enduro is on SUNDAY !!!
And they're using the DH finish, right next to the XC course, so they should get the eyeballs they deserve.
Trained timing results. Lawlor said conditions were nice out there. Lots of US flags at the top of the piles. Let's hope that momentum sticks #nojinx
Top 15 from each class below. full results here - https://prod.chronorace.be/angular/results.html#/uci/event/20250605_mtb/DHI/CG1
Elite Men
Elite Women
Junior Men
Junior Women
Is Pinkerton taking a page from the legendary John Kirkcaldie?
He goes fast in timed training!
I see Wyn’s reason for anger. Didn’t he fight as a privateer to move and up where he is now? He wants others to have the same opportunity not have mommy and daddy buy spots on teams. He IMO has done more good for the sport of late than anyone else. So yiu know Im going to continue to believe he if fighting a fight he feels is right and not just an old man yelling get off my lawn.
ESO is the organizer. If they can’t introduce a venue that they choose and produce a race then what are these teams paying them for. Yeah if the lift was down or there is severe enough weather at the time. But mud? These guys cancelled a mtb race at the highest level for mud because of bad planning. It’s their literal job to work with the local organizations to have a all weather track so teams don’t pay them and fly across the world to not race.
Red Bull never was in charge of medical. But they were pretty instrumental in his recovery. So again who is benefiting from who in this equation. Sport and the fans benefited a ton with red bull as the broadcast sponsor. Costs for local organizers, the sport, and fans were lower. And it’s hard to see a tangible improvement in the broadcast. Relying on the popularity of Neko is great. It’s awesome of him to do it. But if you ask him a question and then cut to his rider in the finish corale after she pedals out the start gate then like what the heck are you doing with his time? If Rick talks over Aaron gwin to say the same corny line about being back or forward at a split when it’s displayed on the screen and the guy who’s on screen is in like 13th which is also displayed on screen what are you doing with his time. I’m not saying Red Bull didn’t have its learning curves. But it was free, well advertised, and the production got better every year. They put more resources into it every year. And that last season of Red Bull seems like a fever dream compared to the vibe around the wcs now.
just want to add that Rick has always done a good job as the face of enduro. He is a talented and knowledgeable presenter. He just doesn’t read the energy of the race well live and often he’s basically taking the air space to tell non information or bad information.
Good to see Dak in the timed training results!
thoughts on this - leogang will have fewer surprise/new/up-and-coming-rider performances than last week.
for some reason this track seems like a place where experience means a lot and those who've raced it for a decade or more will handle the .01's of a second better than the "kids". you can't go checkers or wreckers like loudenvielle (where that strategy paid off for a good few).
could be way off and i'll curse anyone on my fantasy team like normal, but...
I fan bet everytime. Last year was generally better than this year so far. Hopefully I don’t curse anyone this week.
Finn TV
Hate to say I told you so, but the gutting of the main event "volume" of riders on track Saturday & Sunday of a World Cup downhill sure LOOKS to be on full display.
Pits, staging, mountain side & finish corral look like a ghost town now. There aren't enough "friends & family" filling the venues now that the local/regional/national riders for the host venue are out of contention well before the big show.
Previously, with field of 60, track was packed end to end with people spending a full day watching their friends & family shoot for a qualifying.
No incentive to stick around for Finals day to see 30 total strangers from around the world do a couple practice laps and then come by once every 3 minutes at 1pm on a Sunday.
More than one have mentioned a reduced turn out & the venues themselves need to justify these events with masses of spectators. Otherwise they can host less damaging hobbyists for a similar turnout and far lower overhead to draw tourists.
Q1 qualifying (2025) / Qualifying (2024) numbers of riders on start lists
Elite Men: 110 / 186
Elite Women: 36 / 41
Junior Men: 72 / 114
Junior Women: 22 / 18
.......
[More Women Juniors this year for qualifying than in 2024, but fewer of the 2025 starters have a team listed than in 2024. In 2024, 10 of the 18 had team affiliations on the UCI start list, but this year only 8 of 22 do.]
VITAL RAW LEOGANG
The other site posted an IG video with Roger Vieira, sounds like there were a bunch of crashes on the motorway with a couple people helivaced
Goodman Santa Cruz posted a pretty brutal video of Pontvianne going down hard just before where Vieira crashed. Looked like his back end stepped out and he got shot right into the bank. Different causes for each crash for sure though. Can't see any track changes on that particular section that would make it more dangerous than last year... maybe just a deceptively high consequence piece of track
Spot on, gone are the days of a young Aussie or Kiwi buying a one way ticket to Europe, buying a shit old sprinter van and eating Petrol station bagguettes to make a career from riding bikes down a hill fast as fuck.
20+ Vanzacs have made successful careers from exactly that spirit of loving the sport and doing whatever it takes to succeed. Having a Mum who fondled an aliens balls on TV 25 years ago shouldn't be the new status quo.
I used to wear an onion on my belt, as was the style at the time
The Eyeball Lawlor is back!!
Give me five bees for a quarter!
oisin POV and jackson & laurie POV from leogang
Geo blocking the press conference?
Seriously!?!?!?!?!?! What a fucking joke.
is every video on their channel blocked for you or just the race-related vids? seems VERY odd to block the press conference.
We really need an explanation on why they have geoblocked NZ (and Aus?) - as far as I am aware they haven't sold the rights to anyone else in NZ. Makes no sense at all.
Imagine being able to ride a track that challenging at speed while talking the entire way down! Amazing.
Does anyone else not see the full schedule on Max? Right now, it looks like only the junior events are showing and nothing for XC. Has this happened before?
Has not happened for me. I, too, still only see Jr DH finals…no XC no elite DH no nothin…maybe it’s a weather window thing, maybe it’s an intern who didn’t tick a box, maybe they’ve canceled the sport.
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