IainB

ah... who did KM Video cover? the name rings a bell I think I was thinking of B&J Video

Didn't F1 toy with the idea of double points in the final race because Red Bull kept winning? All those sports you mention are not really local team sports though are they? Speedway is a little different as they have separate team and individual competitions at national and international level. There's only really top league football that has the financial clout to call the tune to TV companies

KM Video? Wasn't that the company that used to cover Stoke? With the guy with the beard who's only "question" to riders was "you normally go well round here don't you?"

Now that it's all over, I can take a balanced look at what happened over the last week. RO1 Germany: Total Rubbish. RO2 BV: Rubbish, had some interest for me as GB were in it, but GB qualification was never really in doubt. Finals: Great Speedway, makes you wonder why we had to sit through the rubbish of the first 2 days, which I thought weren't really worthy of being televised. Format: It's the TV world we live in these days, just about every televised sport, with the exception of PL Football, has buckled to TV demands for play offs/winner take all finals. Right or wrong at least you know the rules of the competition before you enter. I did enjoy the finals, maybe they should look at early season qualifiers and a 3 or 4 day knockout final? What I also found strange was looking at the scores, more or less every team seemed to be massively imbalanced with one rider scoring a massive haul of points and his partner barely scoring any, maybe this is to do with the U21 reserve, which I do think needs looking at. GB: Tai was pure world class, his scoring obviously speaks for itself, his team riding a joy to watch, he was generally the only rider on display that was busting a gut to help his team partner... which makes his actions in the final all the more puzzling! There was a World Championship at stake after all. It's a shame that the pit reporter wasn't able to ask some more searching questions during the interviews/press conferences afterwards as it was the one questions all of the fans were asking, why did you not even try to slow Emil down? Robert Lambert looked under powered but did a great job supporting Tai and hopefully will only get better. Craig Cook, last year you would have picked him, on his form so far this year you probably wouldn't have, it's a shame Steve Worrall got injured so early as he would have possibly offered an alternative. Others: Poland: Dudek is not the rider he was last year and their pairing did surprise me, personally I would have gone Zmarzlik and Piotr Pawlicki. Sweden: Could easily have won it if Lindback was in the right mood. Aus: Why no Holder? Was this due to unavailability in UK due to Visa? Pearson & Tatum: Brilliant! Russia: Well Done!

Well done for correcting yourself... just like Pearson did

? You need replacing!

I don't think anybody is saying that fitness is the magic bullet, but surely you can't deny that it is a factor and once you add all of the factors together that's what makes a world championship contender. Without wishing to single anybody out there was a rather good rider riding for a Manchester club a few years back who had all the natural ability in the world, made it to the GP series and was mediocre at best (at that level). I also remember seeing Nicki Pedersen in the Coventry pits a few years back, I think when he was riding for Eastbourne, he was unrecognisable from the person from the year before and I thought at that moment he's going to be World Champ this year... He won it. Of course at that time he was one of very few riders that were taking their fitness that seriously, most of them do these days and if you don't take that approach you're very unlikely to achieve a championship. Surely Doyle is completely the right example to use, he was nothing more than a second string until he got serious about things he's not off the same gate throughout the meeting though is he? there are so many variables at play, but if you put Woffinden vs Fatty bum bum burger boy (whoever he is?) off the same gate in the same conditions, 9 times out of 10 Woffy is going to beat him... it's all about giving yourself the best chance. If somebody is riding a PJR lay down GM why would you challenge them on a out of the box upright Weslake?

Healthy body... Healthy mind?

They seem to be basing their approach on the Team Sky (cycling) approach of marginal gains. If you want to succeed at world level these days it's what you have to do, gone are the days of rolling up to a match with a bike on the back of your car, hitting the bar afterwards and shooting through maccies on the way home, if you want to succeed at world level that is. If the Poles are doing it and you want to beat them, that has to be your baseline, then do a bit extra and then the rest is down to the rider

I thought Cook was worth one more go, especially against the Fins

Or woffy

Or woffy

We need quality not quantity

... And it's Davey Watt!

I'm afraid you'll have to ask RobMcCaffery it was a quote from one of his replies to my posts defending P&T... I just thought I'd repeat it because it made me laugh so much the first time around

Forget imagining that... just imagine for one beautiful moment that: "Supposing a surgeon messed up an operation he was undertaking on you or someone drove into you on a zebra crossingf. I think the 'we all make mistakes' rubbish would soon stop, eh?"

I'm not sure about the naming of the channel... you may as well have called it CrapSportsTV But, good luck

One assumes PQ&T don't have to pay up their £18 to get in

That showed last week on the Swedish coverage when the picture stopped so he just decided to stop commentating, ha ha! I don't blame him

Agreed, I like how he involves the viewers by reading out tweets

I can respect others opinions regarding style, if you don't like their style that's fair enough, not everybody likes the same thing. What I don't respect is people calling for people to be sacked because of a simple mistake

He's brilliant until he does something wrong, which he will and then all of the people , who are probably just envious that he has a better job than them, will be calling for his head! But I do agree that he's good at what he does and it would be nice if BT Sport and IMG woud mix the commentary duties up a bit.

perhaps execution is a bit strong... Does anybody know what happens if there is an injury on day 1?

We all make mistakes and as long as we learn from them that's good, to say huge commentary gaffe is just as ridiculous, I only pointed out your typo to illustrate how easy it is to make a mistake, nobody died, it's probably an indication of the interest in the speedway that was on offer that there's all this hysteria of a small gaffe. He made a mistake and acknowledged it, he'll make more mistakes as will we all, for people to suggest he should lose his job over it is just sick (and not good sick)