91Èȱ¬

Hi Roger, interesting blog as always.

1. Winter Olympics - Do you know when the 91Èȱ¬ tv coverage details will be added to the website as I'm really looking forward to it and would like to plan my viewing. If the actual times aren't finalised yet, can you give a rough indication. I think an Olympic day is about 5pm to 5am, will you be covering all of it live? Can I also appeal again for a new theme tune, just like you do with the Summer games, as this makes it more special than using the Ski Sunday theme.

2. London Ceremonies - I have some ideas that I would like to submit for the ceremonies, do you know who I could send these to?

3. World Cup - When is the meeting with ITV to decide the split of matches between the 91Èȱ¬ and ITV? As I have Sky HD, I want the best games on the 91Èȱ¬ for the full HD experience! Also as two games kick off in the afternoon and only one in the evening, is there any chance of a 6pm to 7pm highlights show on 91Èȱ¬2 before the evening live game, catching up on the afternoon matches?

4. Commonwealth Games - Unless I missed it, I didn't see this advertised in the list of 91Èȱ¬ sporting events in 2010 that you showcased after Sports Personality of the Year. Please can you confirm that you have the rights to this? If you do, will you still be able to show in HD?

5. Mascots - I own every single Olympic and World Cup mascot in history from every tournament and I am eagerly awaiting to see what London 2012 has to offer. A British bulldog would be nice, but no doubt it will be some computer generated creature in the shape of the logo! As part of the Winter Olympic coverage can you please feature the three mascots at some stage, and also showcase the leopard Zakumi for the World Cup. As a collector of the macots, it is lovely to see the real things! One of the Vancouver mascots, Quatchi, is particularly adorable. Would be lovely if you could include their images as part of your opening titles. As the excellent Berlino proved at the World Athletics Championships last August, the mascots can be an integral part of the event.

Have a great Christmas Roger and look forward to your blogs in 2010.

Are there going to be any replica strips for London 2012 a la football shirt? Course, i"m talking about an event one, not a UK team one, but you would have thought that a cool design would likely sell a tidy number.....

Hasn't Mr Mayor been asked to be the mascot yet?? Big n bouncy, just what we need......

Certainly interested in what Mr Hall will have to say. If I'm anything to go by, 'brand awareness penetration' for the Cultural Olympiad may yet have some way to go....

Any building completion scheduled in 2010? Swimming pool? Media centre? Might give the 91Èȱ¬ a chance for a first 'outside broadcast' at Olympic Park, eh?

Winter Olympics - lucky whoever gets to go: snow at Whistler is fantastic right now.....I'd put in a word at high levels, if I were you! No need to let that lucky old so-and-so Inverdale hog all the limelight......

Other than that, merry Christmas Mr Mosey.

If media reports from Vancouver are anything to go by tenants living around London come 2012 may have good reason not to look forward to the Olympics. Vancouver are reporting the eviction of tenants by landlords who expect to charge athletes, media and visitors huge rents for accommodation during the Winter Games. Evicted Vancouver tenants have spotted adverts for their accommodation on a sport events rental website and are taking legal action. Landlords and other homeowners around London may find it difficult to resist the opportunity to exploit the demand for spare accommodation in 2012. Tenants beware!

Andy #1


The detailed schedule of events is available on the VANOC website. Times will be Canadian but easily worked out to the GMT eqivalent.




I am looking forward to the coverage but Roger please ENSURE that there is a commentary free-feed of the opening and closing ceremonies available on one of the interactive channels and that it really is commentary free - this has not been the case for the last Olympics and Commenwealth ceremonies.

Not everyone wants to listen to the innane witterings of whoever it is you use.

It's going to be an exciting year of sporting events to come and the last chance for the 91Èȱ¬ presenters and technical staff to work on a huge sporting event before 2012. I'm guessing the presenting and reporting teams for the Winter Olympics and World Cup are going to have significant roles to play come 2012 and need to gather as much experience of these events as possible.

The ceremonies and mascots appointments will be particularly interesting to me and I hope the folks at London 2012 get them right. I'm sure people will find a way to moan, whatever the choices, though (well, with the building on time and on budget, they'll need some sort of stick to beat London 2012 with). The organisers really need to make a noise about the Olympics this year, though - because aspects such as the cultural Olympiad, have really failed to penetrate public conciousness so far, from what I can tell.

Personally, I vote for a Berlino the Bear copycat as mascot! Anyone who saw the World Athletics Championships last summer knows how hysterical he was! And really brought the personality of the athletes out too.

Looking forward to the Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games, but gutted we'll be one stream down interactive wise on Freeview, which just isn't acceptable really. Forget about the internet - for many of us streaming online isn't an option, and isn't how we want to watch such events anyway.

Also for both events and the World Cup it would be nice if the red button text service got a bit of a facelift so they were tailored to each event as they used to be, rather than just the generic grey look. Nothing too difficult retired - just tweaking the colour scheme and slapping the Olympic rings onto the 91Èȱ¬ Sport logo!

Hopefully too the Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games will have some male presence in the presenting team. I guess the Six Nations rules John Inverdale out of the former, but would definately like to see him involved more in the Commonwealth Games coverage than he has been at the past.

Oh, and finally - not sure you have any sway over such decisions in your new role, but the European Athletics Championship being in Barcelona surely requires THAT theme tune to make a return to 91Èȱ¬ Sport. Heck, ignore the rest - that's my number one demand for 2010! ;)

I am very much looking forward to the Vancouver Winter Olympics having participated and competed in both Alpine and Nordic events in my younger years. Though I enjoyed all the racing I did, I have come to the eventual conclusion that watching the traditional Alpine downhill, giant slalom and slalom events is pretty boring, except perhaps hearing the result at the end. It's a bit like F1 Grand Prix Qualifying; no comparison with the excitement of the actual Grand Prix; just a constant stream of competitors trying to beat the clock.

Of course, the 91Èȱ¬ gives these events massive coverage and, these days, actually has comentators who have competed and thus know what they're talking about.

During the last Winter Olympic coverage, it became blatently apparent that the commentators on many events had no personal experience and inadequate knowledge. Although retired sports competitors, athletes and horseriders etc, they were wholly inappropriate for live coverage of these events, without experienced backup as a dual act. We even had the farcical experience of seeing Steve Cram interviewing Curling competitors.

Meanwhile, 91Èȱ¬2 was playing lip service to covering Nordic events with an unknown commentator who knew none of the competitors' names, struggled even to refer to them correctly by their nationality, and, of course, knew nothing of their previous skiing performances or current form. Now wouldn't it have been at least a step in the right direction to get Steve Cram involved. As a star middle distance runner he would have related well to the training and physical endurance of the Nordic racers, and their racing tactics. So many Nordic events now are run with mass starts that they compare with Summer Olympic track racing, but with the addition of skiing skills.

Finally, ramp this up to the mass start Biathlon events, both individual and relay. Here the skill of shooting, both prone and standing, with heartbeats in the high 100s, adds to the spectacle, with positions changing constantly as a result of shooting success or failure.

The Norwegian, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen is likely to win his 100th World Cup race this year. This is unprecedented in Winter Sports, yet I have never heard his name mentioned on the 91Èȱ¬. He had an unsuccesful Olympics 4 years ago, by his standards, and will be determined to succeed this time. This is a huge story on which the 91Èȱ¬ should be producing a substantial feature. I would like to think that this will happen, and thus introduce the public at large to this fantastic spectators sport, but am not optimistic.
If there is anything you can do to alert the 91Èȱ¬ to this opportunity, may I please thoroughly recommend such action. To see how it should be done one needs only to view Eurosport (Sky channel 410) at 1145 next Saturday, when Bjoerndalen is next due to be in action.

Thanks Roger. I look forward to a wittering free commentaty on the ceremonies (especially when people are actually speaking or performing).

Could the problem of loosing a freeview stream (302) not be resolved by using the 91Èȱ¬ Parliament channell (81)?

The Vancouver Olympics are from 12th - 28th February and Parliament is in recess from the 10th to the 22nd. Instead of endless repeats of select committees etc why not replace it with Vancouver coverage?

You did this for Beijing so a precedent has been set. I know it dosen't cover the whole period. For the last week of the games you could show the games overnight live once the MPs have stopped their business.

Might I please add a second comment on the Winter Olympics.

I'm still shuddering at the cruelty of the media at large on the treatment of Eddie, our one and only ski jumper some years ago. The 91Èȱ¬ was slammed for giving him coverage, being a "loser" and perhaps for lacking rugged good looks. This was abhorrant to anyone who has striven to compete at a high sporting level in any event, but particularly a winter event requiring so much skill and bravery.

GB has competitors in both Alpine and Nordic events. Undoubtedly they will have little by way of sponsorship and substantial logistic challenges, as well as the problems of training to the skill and fitness levels required to compete successfully. They are intrinsically underdogs, thus deserving of our support. How sad then that we hear so little about them unless they are occasionally successful. How good it would be to watch a feature on their preparations and achievements, and what a boost it would give them to feel that the nation is supporting them.

It's a long road to success in winter sports as a Brit. They need all the support they can get, so come on 91Èȱ¬, forget coverage of the elite for a moment and get behind your national team. Remember what the first B in your title stands for!!!

Oh, didn't realise the politicians were off for most of the Winter Games. 91Èȱ¬ Parliament should defo be used then - might not be perfect but better than just the one stream.

Indeed as no equipment actually exists to receive 91Èȱ¬ HD on Freeview yet there's no real reason why the interactive streams should have been turned off so early - waiting till the end of Feb wouldn't have harmed, even if it was delaying the inevitable. (I know it's not an issue for you Roger, but heck, OFCOM and the 91Èȱ¬ Trust didn't listen to our views - so at least here we can rant at someone who'll read them, even though we know you're powerless to do anything about it!)

And yes of course I meant that theme tune Roger. Indeed I wouldn't mind the 1994 Commonwealth Games theme being resurrected for the Vancouver Olympics, but I guess we'll get Ski Sunday as always.

Wonderful coverage of Biathlon on Eurosport last weekend with the men's mass start 15km being as good as it gets, Bjoerndalen eventually winning by over a minute with awesome standing shooting. It was good to see the union jack on the range target graphic and to hear a bit from the commentators about the team's achievement. It occurs to me however, that a channel such as Eurosport have no control over the video coverage as it has to satisfy, well, Europe. The 91Èȱ¬ have full control and can interview British competitors, show us how they prepare and give us some idea of the scale of their achievements within the context of what they are undertaking.

Wouldn't it be great to have a 10,000 metre summer track event where runners have to stop at a range every 2½km, go to their rifle and shoot, running extra distance on a penalty loop for each miss! That would put a stop to those interminable, tactical, slow races with everyone saving for a sprint at the end.