The good news for UK cycling fans is that ITV4 will be covering the whole of the 2024 Tour de France. They’ll have live coverage and then highlights at 7pm, same as every year. (Although the highlights do sometimes get shunted back a bit.) Some of the bigger stages will also be broadcast from the start.
Live coverage
Ned Boulting and David Millar are now firmly-established as commentators, supplemented by Daniel Friebe and Matt Rendell in the multilingual roving reporter roles.
Over on Eurosport/Discovery+, I’m assuming it’ll again be Carlton Kirby and Rob Hatch with the comically unemotional Sean Kelly – a man whose knowledge of cycling is only surpassed by his almost admirable refusal to convey even the slightest bit of passion. Kirby is a bit of an acquired taste and somewhat prone to talking cobblers, but he can be entertaining during the duller passages of the race.
Hatch I rather like, although some find him a bit excitable at the finishes. Personally, I reckon he’s pretty good during the bulk of the stage, combining descriptive commentary with the all-important idle waffle (although he may focus rather too much on the cycling for those who enjoy the ambience of the race more than the sport).
Jens Voigt, Matt Stephens and Adam Blythe will also broadcast from the back of one of the motorbikes following the race (at different times, they’re not all going to be queued up on the back there).
Let’s be honest, it’ll be Boulting and Millar for most of us though.
Highlights
When it comes to highlights, ITV4 wins hands down. It is a TV programme, as opposed to just being the highlights of the racing, so they try and tell a story, summarising the day and framing it in the context of the race as a whole. Done badly, this approach could be frustrating. But they don’t do it badly – largely because they have a good group of people involved.
Chris Boardman will doubtless take time off from making the nation’s roads safe to drop in at some point, while Pete Kennaugh seems to have become a more central member of the team in recent years. The likes of Sarah Storey and Dani Rowe have popped up in the past too.
Most importantly of all, Gary Imlach will be there, anchoring things with his usual dry pithiness.
It’s worth noting that if you miss the ITV4 highlights when they’re on, they usually appear on the ITV Player within an hour or so – although it can be a bit hit and miss, particularly at the weekend, so try not to rely on this.
Eurosport’s on-demand service is more reliable – albeit the highlights can sometimes seem like arbitrary stretches of the live coverage pasted together with no real thought for how they fit together.
Orla Chennaoui will present The Breakaway – the punditry/highlights thing after each stage – along with Robbie McEwen, Dani Rowe and Adam Blythe.
Other
In addition to this, why not follow the race via this website? If you haven’t done so already, here’s why you should sign up for email updates.
And if you already subscribe and enjoy the site, I’d really appreciate it if you could tell other people about it as well because my marketing campaign basically amounts to crossing my fingers.
(This article is an updated version of last year’s article about UK TV coverage of the Tour de France.)
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