One of the year鈥檚 great sporting occasions will be made even more memorable if can win the Epsom Derby at the 15th attempt. The popular pint-size Italian rides (the biggest Derby favourite in a decade) in Saturday鈥檚 race.
But Frankie鈥檚 quest is just one of many stories 91热爆 Sport will cover during our two days at Epsom. As well as the top-quality racing - don鈥檛 forget Friday鈥檚 鈥 our team will bring you all the atmosphere from one of the biggest race meetings of the year.
Certainly I have very particular memories of Derby Day. The first time I went 鈥 back in 2003 - I was overwhelmed by the colour, the grandeur and the sheer number of people. The memories come rushing back - the sea of open top buses and stretch limos in the middle of the course, the track undulating across the Downs and the realisation that I had, by far, the cheapest suit of any of the thousands of spectators who had come to soak up the occasion, as well as the sun.
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The final edition of Inside Sport is a very special one.
Our cameras have been filming with one of Britain's best and most controversial referees, , for the last year. Ever since, in fact, he made his at the World Cup Finals. It's a revealing portrait of the life of a Premiership referee and you will see, in real time, Graham Poll's comments on that have followed him around in what turned out to be his final season.
I'll be very interested to know what you make of it. I have seen an unfinished version and I think - love him or hate him - it's a very compelling watch.
What makes the weather and sport two staple topics of conversation in British society? A major reason is their unpredictability. In many parts of the country, after days of continual sunshine, Mother Nature ushered in the obligatory Bank Holiday wind and rain, while a 999-1 shot won the golf at Wentworth.
Those were the odds you could have got on at lunch-time on Saturday, before the Dane rattled off five birdies on the back nine.
On the Sunday, the torrential weather meant tee-off times were moved forward, as was our coverage 鈥 which began at 1215 on 91热爆 TWO (Australian Brett Rumford managed to complete his final round in less than two hours). Thankfully conditions improved slightly for the later pairings, with . And many of you watching enjoyed not just the thrilling finale, but our entire output:
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Thanks again for all your comments on this week's . The has generated amongst you all, with many agreeing with Tony Livesey that a ban should be for life.
Some of you picked up on what Tony said about the NFL - that it was a sport "nobody wants to watch in Germany". That was probably a touch strong - many thousands of people do go and watch the games each week but even the themselves would say they would like attendances to be much higher. Their average crowd is 18,000 in a stadium that holds 55,000. And of course the two UK teams that used to be in the League have closed.
Having lived in America for nearly four years I am personally a big fan of the game - is my team - but for me somehow it isn鈥檛 the same trying to keep up with it in the UK but I remember how much I enjoyed it at the time.
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I'm Michael Cole and I'm the editor of live athletics. I joined the 91热爆
in 1990 and have been within Sport since 1992. I've worked on athletics
- in one role or another - since 1993.
As the editor of live athletics I work alongside the executive producer
and senior producers to plan our athletics coverage. What that involves
varies whether it's an international event like the World Championships,
or a domestic event such as Crystal Palace. There's a fair amount of
crossover between their roles and mine, but the broad split is that I
concentrate on what the programme should include, and they look after
how that happens. On the actual day of a programme I decide whether we
should be doing track, field, interviews, build up or studio chat and
they direct the programme including the coverage of the athletics
itself.
Finally it happened. It took five attempts spread out over two years but last Sunday .
Taken individually, it鈥檚 just one win but it is one that could be the key to the Swiss master finally winning the French Open and, who knows, maybe the Grand Slam.
That alone makes this year鈥檚 French Open essential viewing for tennis fans - and there'll be .
The tournament is a marathon of a so we鈥檙e prepared for long hours, strained voices and even the strange bits of red grit you get in the media centre sandwiches - we hope you鈥檒l join us for the duration.
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OK, here's your sporting starter for ten. How many Rugby World Cup winner's medals do Lawrence Dallaglio and Matt Dawson each have?
The answer is actually two each - not because they managed to smuggle a couple of extra gongs out of Australia in 2003 - but it is a bit of a trick question.
Back in 1993 a youthful Dallaglio and Dawson were both members of the England squad that won the inaugural played that year at Murrayfield.
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I hope you enjoyed our exclusive interview with Sven-Goran Erikkson. It took a long time to secure, but it was worth the wait.
I have again had the odd comment about the amount of football on the show. I have replied to that before so do look back and you'll see the basic problem is that it's very hard to make sure there's a range of sports in EVERY programme because we are often at the mercy of top stars' schedules and have to interview them when they are free.
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For the vast majority of the players on the PGA , the BMW Championship is the number one event outside of the majors, and the one they all dream of winning. Played over the famous at Wentworth in Surrey, the 91热爆 will be covering all four days from 24-27 May. And along with the live television and radio coverage there will be comprehensive previews, updates and reports on the
91热爆 ONE and TWO will show no fewer than 18 hours of live action, as well as an extra two hours on Thursday and Friday morning via the red button on 91热爆i. This additional coverage will focus on the featured groups from the morning play and has proved extremely popular. Our cameras will capture the best of the action from a truly world class international field containing no fewer than seven of the top 15 players in the world rankings, and ten of last year鈥檚 successful .
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"They think it's all over鈥︹
Wembley鈥檚 seven-year itch has finally ended. Like a bunch of frazzled sixth-formers at the end of their A-levels, the 91热爆's football team has emerged blinking into the light, hoping the revision paid off and the examiners made some sense of our answers!
As I said in my blog last week, Saturday's broadcast was always going to be unlike any we've ever done before. Not only were we covering a showpiece football match, but also a host of ceremonials as a chapter of social - as well as sporting - history unfolded. In technical terms - and this has nothing to do with me, so it's not self-congratulatory - the occasion was a triumph for our colleagues in , and for our match director and executive producer and their teams.
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Thanks for all your feedback on Inside Sport so far, please keep it coming. Here are answers to some of your questions:
Owen Hargreaves interview
The full will run on this week's show alongside our interview with !
Very sorry for changing the interview from to at short notice last week. Because we needed to do the , I was concerned, with the Beckham in LA feature also running, that the whole programme would be and so I changed the interview.
So, no sinister reason I'm afraid but Owen's interview will definitely run soon - for when.
Sunday programme
The Sunday programme is about 50% . We run the big interview, often at greater length, and the feature. But we also attempt to have a live guest, we do a paper review and we take in any breaking news that's happening. Finally, we look forward to the afternoon of with hits from our outside broadcasts.
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This weekend is taking us to France and the historic , a place probably more famous for car racing than bikes. The good news is that after all the behind the scenes drama in , Suzi Perry is much better and will be presenting our coverage from France.
We鈥檇 arrived in China for the last round and all was fine, but by race day Suzi was running a high temperature and had a nasty throat infection - so there was no possibility of her doing the show. It鈥檚 the first programme she鈥檚 ever missed through illness in her career at the 91热爆 and she was really upset.
In her absence the rest of the team rallied round on Sunday morning to get us on air, we had just three hours to completely rewrite the show and get the necessary pictures to London.
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In a week like this, I'm more pleased than ever not to be in charge of our technical operation. Not only is the a massive game of football, but this year the grand re-opening of makes it a huge national and international event. Our engineering managers, their technical teams and senior production people have been working for months in conjunction with the FA and the Wembley authorities to try to ensure the best coverage possible for the millions watching around the world.
Even so, we'll be working in a brand-new stadium which is staging a major game for the first time. Add in the ambitious ceremonials and pageantry which have been planned to commemorate the occasion, and you have a broadcast which is generating more than the usual pre-match nerves - as well as excited anticipation - among our team. Even the running order is a little different from any we've had to prepare before.
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In this job, match afternoons are usually the most enjoyable two hours of the week. All being well, our planning comes to fruition and the running order and script are yet to be written, so we just sit down and watch half a dozen or more games on different screens. In the company of people who've played the game at the highest level.
It's always a privilege, but there's usually a distinction between the old pros calmly dissecting the action and the production team who try, and often fail, to rein in the emotions we feel as armchair fans. Sunday - and in particular - was different. No-one who was in the office supports either team, but everyone found themselves cheering, groaning and leaping out of their seats. It was impossible not to be swept away by one of the most extraordinary matches any of us have ever seen. Goodness only knows what it was like for a partisan supporter, or indeed for the managers. No wonder !
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Firstly, I have a confession and apology. Through my total failure to properly communicate with my team, we once again failed to wear seatbelts while doing an interview in the back of a car. I had uttered the immortal words: "This will never happen again," after the first time we did this, but I'm afraid it did. I am now as sure as I can be that we all know the law and will make sure it really doesn't happen again.
Now to . As the weeks go on we are developing the format and the most interesting, and slightly unexpected, thing I've found is how hard it is to make sure there's a spread of sports in each programme. This is why I've always said we need to be judged over a number of programmes. But it is exceedingly difficult to make sure there isn't too much football, cricket, etc, in each show.
We are at the mercy of when sporting stars choose to make themselves available, and because we always ask for extra time and access, we have to go with when they can free themselves up.
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It seems like a long time ago now, but on Saturday 19 August new-boys Sheffield United scored the first goal of the 2006-7 Premiership season. Rob Hulse's header earned them a hugely creditable with mighty Liverpool in a lunchtime kick-off.
As we now know, despite the early promise, that result did not signal the start of a glorious campaign for the Blades and today their fans are contemplating an instant return to the Championship.
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Live rugby league is back on with two matches from the .
On Saturday we are at Headingley for (91热爆1, 2.30) while on Sunday it's v (91热爆2 1.45pm).
Sunday's coverage follows rugby union with our highlights of the (91热爆2 1.00pm)
As the TV Editor of both codes I am often amused by the enmity of some supporters of one code of rugby for the other. League fans talk dismissively of the "kick and clap" game while Union folk dismiss the "wrigglers" as the inferior game.
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After six years as a journalist, I'm now a senior content producer, helping to run and evolve many of the interactive things we do. This means overseeing established areas like our blogs, , votes and .
But it also means trying out new things with cutting edge websites like , and .
I'm well aware that our office is not the sole domain for bright ideas though. So your thoughts, comments and questions are always welcome.
A born and bred Londoner, my sporting allegiances obviously lie in Liverpool (), New York () and Louisiana () and I'm a big boxing fan.
I'm also currently obsessed with the Amazon (rainforest not online shop), pan fried scallops and .
I'm one of the Assistant Editors in TV Sport.
I joined the 91热爆 in 1998 as a trainee assistant producer, having worked the previous four years in newspapers.
I was assistant editor of Grandstand from 2002 to its end in 2007, where my job was to co-ordinate the sports on Saturday and Sunday afternoons from the gallery.
Nowadays I do the same job on the separate elements that Grandstand has left behind, so I may turn up on anything from Six Nations Rugby and the NFL to the highlights programmes at Wimbledon and the Open golf.
I also act as 91热爆 liaison with the independent companies that produce our coverage of snooker, darts, bowls and cricket.
With that bunch on my CV, it's no surprise that you'll usually get an opinion from me on most sporting topics, but Cornish rugby, Indian cricket, Leeds United and the New York Jets would probably incite the most passion.
Thanks for all your emails and comments about the first edition of . When we watched the show back the following day, we were all, in effect, seeing what we'd been working on for the first time (when you are in the gallery it's very hard to get a proper sense of the show). And I agreed with many of the comments viewers made, for example about the pace of the programme.
The first edition also had two football items in it and there were comments about us being another football programme. Viewers of the second edition would have noted the three big pieces covered tennis (), and - as I think I said in a previous blog, you have to look at the show over a number of weeks to get a sense of the range we cover.
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The Premiership contract allows us to mount a midweek when there are at least six games played in a given midweek. Or, in exceptional circumstances, with prior agreement. So, once moved from the FA Cup semi-final weekend and was scheduled for live transmission by Sky on the last Wednesday of the season, we applied for just such permission. Hence an extra-curricular MOTD this midweek (Wednesday 9 May, 2310 BST on 91热爆 ONE).
We - and Sky - rather hoped we'd be showing a title showdown. Instead, we have a Cup Final dress rehearsal (minus some of the cast, no doubt) or, as some Liverpool fans have suggested, a 3rd place play-off for the Champions League! Nothing against either team (and United have been worthy winners) but, unless your own team's involved, as programme-makers we want the season's drama to go the distance. Once again, though, a fantastic relegation battle has lasted to the very last day.
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Welcome to the first MotoGP blog which I鈥檓 writing at 39,000 feet on my way back from Shanghai, after won a thrilling race in the last weekend.
I鈥檓 91热爆 Sport鈥檚 TV motorsport producer and I鈥檓 going to start writing here regularly so I can answer your questions and comments 鈥 to start off with, I thought I鈥檇 deal with some of the issues that most frequently come up in the e-mails sent to our website.
A question we are often asked these days is: 鈥淲hy don鈥檛 we broadcast MotoGP in widescreen?鈥 All the broadcasters take their race coverage from the host broadcaster, , and they only offer this in .
I don鈥檛 know what other broadcasters do, but the 91热爆 always transmit live sport as it originates, rather than zooming in to create a false widescreen, which can degrade the quality of the picture. The rights holders are currently experimenting with HD and hope to be able to offer race coverage in (HD) from 2008 or 2009, which will also mean you get to see the races in widescreen.
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I am the series editor of Final Score on 91热爆 ONE and Score on 91热爆i, as well as being the women's football editor.
I studied journalism at Richmond College in Sheffield and began my career as a newspaper journalist. I joined the 91热爆 in 1990 as a sub-editor with Ceefax Sport. Three years later I moved over to on attachment as a trainee assistant producer. I became a producer here in 1998, an assistant editor in 2001 and an editor in 2004.
I have had a varied and enjoyable career at the 91热爆. I have worked at three World Cups, two European Championships and two Olympic Games (Atlanta and Sydney). I have also produced and directed documentaries, worked on nine Wimbledon tennis championships (both as a journalist and a producer; I also directed the titles sequence in 1999), six world darts championships (including one as editor in 2001) and was director/producer on the World's Strongest Man in Las Vegas in 1997.
But football has always been my main love. I worked on and as a producer from 1994 and first began editing programmes in 1999. I was Assistant Editor of Football Focus from 2001-2004 and since 2001 I have also been responsible for our women's football TV coverage, including Women's Euro 2005 in England and Women's World Cup 2007 in China.
I am the Head of TV Sport Editorial. That area takes in all our TV output except Football, which Niall Sloane looks after , and the Olympics and Athletics, which Dave Gordon looks after.
So I am responsible for a wide range of sports including rugby, golf, tennis, racing and snooker, as well as other programming such as and the new sports show .
My role is to oversee all this output, make sure that we are covering the right areas in the right way and to keep looking ahead to see how we can improve what we do.
This is a transcript of a speech I am giving at the Professional Cricketers' Association Business Summit meeting today.
You may have spotted that the 91热爆 loves an anniversary. This is certainly a vintage year.
It was 80 years ago (so in 1927) that we did our . It鈥檚 70 years this year since our 鈥 which is a reminder of how quickly the experimental 91热爆 television service followed from the birth of radio.
And soon we鈥檒l be marking the 50th anniversary of , which was launched in something like its current form in 1957. There had, of course, been cricket commentary before then; but the historic nature of TMS was that the 91热爆 became the first broadcaster to cover every ball of a Test match. The slogan for the programme in the was, "Don't miss a ball, we broadcast them all".
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will underline their dominance of women's football in this country, should they build on last weekend's Uefa Cup triumph, on Bank Holiday Monday's FA Women's Cup final.
The north London team could go on to lift an unprecedented fourth trophy of the season, if they win against , at the City Ground, Nottingham, .
It is the first time in the six years that I have been editing the match for the 91热爆, that the final has taken place outside of London. A record crowd is expected, buoyed by the growth in women's football in this country, England's qualification for the and the promise of good weather.
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I've been working in 91热爆 Sport for 20 years now in TV Production - firstly as an Assistant Producer on Grandstand where I learnt my trade, but now as a producer and director for rugby union, golf, wimbledon and other major events. I'm also Executive Producer on the Summer and Winter Olympics.
The big events are what I love most of all about 91热爆 Sport. There's a huge amount of planning involved, but when the events come around it's the 91热爆 at its best - top quality production, the whole of the 91热爆 pulling together, a fantastic team atmosphere and the added buzz of being at the biggest sporting occasions.
I've been involved in planning the Winter Olympics in Vancouver for the last 2 1/2 years, and it's been a privilege to visit Canada on various planning visits. The scenery around Vancouver and Whistler is spectacular and will lend itself to some memorable images during the Games - and the people here are proud to be hosting the Olympics and are getting very excited by the prospect.
As someone who loves golf, skiing and mountain biking it's a part of the world I'll definitely be returning to in the future.
So we are finally on air.
It was with a mixture of apprehension and relief that the clock finally ticked round and we broadcast our first programme.
It was nearly 10 minutes past 11pm last night when it finally happened - our big interview was with John Terry. at Chelsea and said he hadn't been racist towards Ledley King, called for a return of David Beckham to the England squad and talked really openly about his life and family.
The interview - and - was picked up well by other parts of the 91热爆 and in the morning papers.
It's been one of the ambitions of the programme to get the big interviews but do them in a more revealing way - the line up for the rest of this run is , , , and . You can send us your questions to them at .
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