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Olympic Commentators


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Steve Cram has been a bit hit & miss with his commentary, even though he is not a curler. This weekend, whether it was in the men's or women's, I can't remember, but he said "there's 6 stones in the house(full target) even though GB had only sent 5 & Rhona never picked up on it.

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1 hour ago, Tsunami said:

I thought Steve Cram and Rona were brilliant with the curling commentary knowing and explaining what shots were on to not on, and why. Once again Curling, after a major completion, will be the talk of people who never go to the rinks to watch it. Fascinating sport, played in a good and fair competitive sport, where the tactics and their execution are unbelievable. Pity there is no rinks beside me where it is played.  

look outside tomorrow morning , you may get your wish for a local ice rink,  good luck in finding any stones to play with in this weather !

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4 hours ago, Bruiser said:

I have not seen much of the Winter Olympics but I have no problem at all with Nigel Pearson and Kelvin Tatum…at least they sound enthusiastic and try and promote racing to a casual viewer….and producers want enthusiasm in commentary now, times have changed from old style commentary so if you don’t follow then you are replaced.

I'm all for enthusiasm and generally don't mind Pearson myself but I understand why people don't like him, he is at times too shouty and loud. There are others out there I prefer to listen to and would be quite happy to see replace NP if the need ever arose. There was a guy in the 90s and 00s who did the videos from Coventry and Peterborough, he was a very fast commentator, almost horse racing style, I really liked him. Always made races sound exciting even if they weren't :D

As for Tatum though, I would never get rid of him. His knowledge and experience as a former rider makes him very good at what he does IMO.

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7 hours ago, Bagpuss said:

I'm all for enthusiasm and generally don't mind Pearson myself but I understand why people don't like him, he is at times too shouty and loud. There are others out there I prefer to listen to and would be quite happy to see replace NP if the need ever arose. There was a guy in the 90s and 00s who did the videos from Coventry and Peterborough, he was a very fast commentator, almost horse racing style, I really liked him. Always made races sound exciting even if they weren't :D

As for Tatum though, I would never get rid of him. His knowledge and experience as a former rider makes him very good at what he does IMO.

I think that was Colin Martin (?) once of Tape 'o' Sport...never liked him to be honest.

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3 hours ago, steve roberts said:

I think that was Colin Martin (?) once of Tape 'o' Sport...never liked him to be honest.

It was Colin Martin... I always like his style, for video at least, was never polished enough for TV imo

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18 minutes ago, iainb said:

It was Colin Martin... I always like his style, for video at least, was never polished enough for TV imo

Used to like Chris French (?) on Screensport/Eurosport.

Edited by steve roberts
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When a race is in progress, you have to question if you need commentary at all - we can all see what's happening and after all we don't need commentary whilst watching live in the stadium.

The most annoying commentary of all at the Olympics is for ice skating.

Ice skating isn't really a sport, it's performance art, the same as dancing and is often an elegant and graceful  spectacle which is ruined by intrusive commentary, and you can't mute that because you need to hear the music.

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43 minutes ago, keepturningleft said:

When a race is in progress, you have to question if you need commentary at all - we can all see what's happening and after all we don't need commentary whilst watching live in the stadium.

The most annoying commentary of all at the Olympics is for ice skating.

Ice skating isn't really a sport, it's performance art, the same as dancing and is often an elegant and graceful  spectacle which is ruined by intrusive commentary, and you can't mute that because you need to hear the music.

Peter York used to do a commentary form the centre green at Cowley during the last lap and I found it irritating to say the least!

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3 hours ago, steve roberts said:

Peter York used to do a commentary form the centre green at Cowley during the last lap and I found it irritating to say the least!

He changed to commentating on the final lap at Reading and was just as annoying.

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I think Jonathan Pierce started all the shouty commentary we get today. I remember, at one time, he was seen as something of a comedy value novelty with his excessive way, but now just blends in with all the others.

You need commentary for speedway. I, for one, want to know who is who as I don't fill in a race card when it's on television. And on televised sport it adds something for me. Nigel and Kelvin do a reasonable job in my opinion.

The best sport for "non-commentary" is probably tennis. You don't get it during the rallies really, but they then discuss things during the gaps.

 

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1 hour ago, Grachan said:

I think Jonathan Pierce started all the shouty commentary we get today. I remember, at one time, he was seen as something of a comedy value novelty with his excessive way, but now just blends in with all the others.

You need commentary for speedway. I, for one, want to know who is who as I don't fill in a race card when it's on television. And on televised sport it adds something for me. Nigel and Kelvin do a reasonable job in my opinion.

The best sport for "non-commentary" is probably tennis. You don't get it during the rallies really, but they then discuss things during the gaps.

 

has Jonathan Pierce ever done coms for robot wars . i think it would be good for that sport.   ! ! ! 

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I think Cram and either Howie or Lockhart are great commentators, they raise their voices only when necessary - which was not often.  The guys who do all the snowboard cross/snowboarding stuff are very excitable, but that fits in with the vibe of the sport so makes perfect sense.

My real beef is with commentators who can't speak English properly.  John Jackson, the 'colour commentator' for the sliding sports could barely get through a sentence without the English language taking a pummelling.  I'm not a pedant, but a constant stream of 'lines what they're driving' 'good starts what they're making' type comment is fairly unbearable.

Edited by Kester
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I think the trend for excitable commentary got a boost with the advent of subscription channels. I remember reading an interview with one of the pioneers on Sky who was presenting a pretty dire football match and at half-time apologised for the quality of the first half. he then got an angry producer in his ear reminding him the viewers were paying money to watch the match and wouldn't be pleased to be told they were watching rubbish. Even now Sky hype their football; it's not Sunday football, it's Super Sunday.

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15 hours ago, Tsunami said:

He changed to commentating on the final lap at Reading and was just as annoying.

Every time he opened his mouth he was annoying, especially when he forgot which track he was supposed to be at. :rolleyes:

I do actually think it's a difficult job, especially in speedway where you've got to fill a lot of dead time and there's only so many things you can say about four riders going around in circles. I didn't find him too bad as a deejay years ago, albeit a bit Smashie and Nicey, but it was better when he just read out the results at the speedway.

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1 hour ago, Humphrey Appleby said:

Every time he opened his mouth he was annoying, especially when he forgot which track he was supposed to be at. :rolleyes:

I do actually think it's a difficult job, especially in speedway where you've got to fill a lot of dead time and there's only so many things you can say about four riders going around in circles. I didn't find him too bad as a deejay years ago, albeit a bit Smashie and Nicey, but it was better when he just read out the results at the speedway.

Oxford's announcer, Dave Hammond, was one of the best. Nice bloke too!

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