Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

OLN released their spring cycling coverage schedule, but it would be hard to tell looking at their website. There is no category for cycling except for the Tour de France which is last year’s coverage information. Velonews provided the info via a press release. The schedule looks much like last year with Paris-Nice kicking off their usual one-hour Sunday coverage on March 5th.

“Cycling continues to be an important part of OLN programming,” said OLN president Gavin Harvey. “With Lance Armstrong’s retirement, fans are eagerly waiting to see who will emerge as the sport’s next star. Through our coverage of the spring classics, we will be able to chronicle the drama leading up to, and including, the Tour de France.” — Velonews

March 5 & 12 – Paris-Nice (France) 5 p.m. ET
March 19 – Milan-San Remo/Tirreno-Adriatico (Italy) 5 p.m. ET
March 26 – Critérium International (France) 5 p.m. ET
April 9 – Paris-Roubaix (France) 5 p.m. ET
April 23 – Liège-Bastogne-Liège/Flèche-Wallonne (Belgium) 5 p.m. ET
May 7 & 14 – Giro d’Italia (Italy) 5 p.m. ET
May 21 & 28 – Giro d’Italia (Italy) 4 p.m. ET
July 1-23 – Tour de France (TBA)

Interesting point is that Tour de France coverage is TBA. In the Lance Armstrong days, I think they would already have announced that they would provide live daily coverage. Will the live daily coverage of the Tour de France continue in the post-Lance era?

I also hope for a few other things:
1) OLN will abandon the name “Cyclism Sundays” for the one-hour Sunday shows.
2) Show regular repeats of the races shown on Sundays.
3) Show more domestic racing in general. I’d be fine with a 1am showing of the Tour de Nez. Just don’t give up on the US Circuit. The Tour of Georgia is not even listed in their schedule. (ESPN2 is showing the Tour of California)
4) More usage of the video streaming. Since OLN has the rights to show many of the races, I would be willing to pay a small fee to view cycling coverage throughout the year on the web. I am planning on buying the cycling.tv subscription too.
5) Objective reporting. I was sick and tired of the Lance Armstrong hype that was exuding from the entire OLN on-air crew during the Tour. Sure, I expect it from Bob Roll, but not from Phil and Paul too. The lowest point of the “Fox News” style favoritism of Armstrong and Discovery came during the Trek Sweepstakes commercials. Not only were the commercials poorly produced, but Phil and Paul seemed to have lost some journalistic integrity when they would jump around screaming that they won a Discovery Channel team jersey or a Trek Madone bike. Hopefully we will not see Phil and Paul blatantly pimping a specific team. These guys are reporting the race, they should be neutral.

Luckily there are several American riders on several teams so there can be enough US pride to go around so that the OLN crew can at least appear neutral.

Hopefully cycling can get back to a more prominent position on the OLN schedule. Looking at their primetime lineup shows 5 straight hours of “Survivor”. I am a big fan of the show, but seriously, I cannot imagine myself watching five hours of Survivor.