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ITV4 to provide live coverage of Amgen Tour of California in May

Free-to-air channel pledged to increase amount of cycling it shows in 2011

Free-to-air digital TV channel ITV4, which earlier this year said that it planned to increase the amount of cycling it covers, will be showing the Amgen Tour of California live from 15 May. The news was confirmed on Twitter by Ned Boulting, who will be presenting coverage from a studio in London, together with a “mystery guest.”

The TV station has regularly broadcast highlights and occasional live coverage of the Tour de France in recent years, as well as the Halfords Tour Series and Tour of Britain, and in recent weeks has also aired highlights of races such as Paris-Roubaix.

Boulting recently used his twitter stream to urge cycling fans wishing to see more mainstream coverage of cycling’s big races to lobby the TV station, although clearly there are limitations – when asked why ITV4 wouldn’t be covering the Giro d’Italia, he replied, “Because it is eye-wateringly expensive for a free-to-air Channel to afford.”

However, he added that hopefully the Tour of California wouldn’t be the last event to be shown on the channel for the first time this year.

The race starts at Lake Tahoe on 15 May and ends in Thousand Oaks, near Los Angeles, eight days later. Each of the eight stages scheduled to finish by around 3.30pm local time, or 11.30pm UK time. Full details of the race can be found on its website.

Hopefully the renewed emphasis on the sport will prompt someone at ITV4 to give the cycling section of the channel’s website a bit of a refresh – the latest news item relates to Edvald Boasson Hagen, then with Columbia-HTC, winning the 2009 Tour of Britain more than 18 months ago.
 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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7 comments

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handlebarcam | 12 years ago
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Quote:

Hopefully the renewed emphasis on the sport will prompt someone at ITV4 to give the cycling section of the channel’s website a bit of a refresh – the latest news item relates to Edvald Boasson Hagen, then with Columbia-HTC, winning the 2009 Tour of Britain more than 18 months ago.

So, only marginally more out-of-date than the Cycling section of the BBC Sport web site? Seriously, if Philippe Gilbert were to check it he'd wander what the hell happened to his Ardennes week.

Any live TV coverage in the UK is good, although you'll probably get higher quality pictures from the ToC's own live feed/tracker thing (ITV4 on Freeview uses a much lower pixel count, higher compression stream than say the BBC channels.) But if you've got capped broadband it might be best to save that for watching the Giro.

BTW, I wouldn't get too excited about the mystery guest. My guess is it'll be Deano Downing.

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spongebob | 12 years ago
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Neato gang

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downfader | 12 years ago
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I REALLY want to see the Giro, but the ToCal is defintely going to be one to watch. TDF is where its always been at for me. Havent missed a TDF in about 10 years I reckon

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Atredes1983 | 12 years ago
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This is great news, almost enough to make me by a TV if they promised to show the whole of the Tour of Britain live then I'd even get a licence.  3

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37monkey | 12 years ago
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Tour of California, mystery guest, Lance?............or even better Arnie!

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koko56 | 12 years ago
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Man oh man how I wish that BBC covered more cycling.

Think of all the things on the iPlayah!!1  10

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Michael5 replied to koko56 | 12 years ago
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koko56 wrote:

Man oh man how I wish that BBC covered more cycling.

Think of all the things on the iPlayah!!1  10

Yeah, but overall their cycling coverage is pants. Miles better on ITV4 - Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett; what's not to like??

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