The third and final grand tour of the year approaches! As you’d expect, the main coverage is from Spanish national broadcaster TVEI on a wide range of satellites with show times apparently only published a few days ahead now. In previous years, TVEI times had been published a week or two ahead.
Eurosport is the next best, free-to-air n German at 19e, with Vuelta shows starting at 1600 CET most days.
Who else is covering this race free-to-air?
This year’s Tour of Germany is overlapping with the Tour of Ireland and the Vuelta a Espana, which I don’t remember it doing before, so the main place to watch it is ARD Das Erste on 19e and 13e.
ARD show times are listed on the official site but settle down to 1605-1725 CET for next Monday-Friday. Some stages are also shown on TW1/ORF Sport Plus at 19e. (Thanks to Bernie S for the links.)
It looks like all other international satellite broadcasts are pay-TV. Please leave a comment if you know better.
The Tour of Ireland is attracting a growing audience and this year’s entrants include Garmin-Chipotle’s Irish champion Dan Martin who hinted at good form in the just-finished Volta a Portugal. Other entrants include Team Columbia with the Manx Express Mark Cavendish returning to the road hoping to recapture his amazing Tour de France form after a disappointing Beijing Olympics.
Highlights are shown every day on itv4 (at 28 east, on the UK-targetted beam) at 7pm BST from Wednesday 27th to Sunday 31st August, except 7.30pm Friday and 7.10pm Saturday. Non-satellite Irish viewers can see what looks like the same programme on RTE Two about 3am. (itv news release) I’ve not found any other non-subscription broadcasts yet.
The Tour of Portugal is being shown live on RTPi (13e and 19e, also other continents). Times (UTC+1) are:
I don’t think this race is carried on other channels (please leave a comment if you know otherwise) and RTPi’s broadcast quality has been a bit worse than most channels over the last few years (I suspect there’s an analogue part of the broadcast system), but this race is still worth watching to see if you can spot some stars of the future. The umbrella dancing while waiting for the podium presentations also needs to be seen to be believed!
Sadly, the official site is ShockWaveF’d so I can’t see who’s riding, but I expect the main CyclingFans Live Coverage page will keep me informed well enough.
(Thanks to Bernie S for the tip yet again.)
Bad BBC! Their olympic schedules are useless, so I’d missed the Men’s road race by the time I found the right page on their website.
The Women’s road race is 0700-1030 BST tomorrow (Sun 10 August), with the time trials on Wednesday 13 August 0430-1010 BST.
BMX fans (any reading this? I’ve yet to find any) can see the finals up to 0418 BST on Thursday 21 August, while mountain bikes run 0800-1030 BST on Friday 22 (Women) and Saturday 23 (Men).
Events are shown on Eurosport (19e), ARD/ZDF (19e), RTBF-Sat (19e), La 2 (5w), SLO-2 (13e), RAI Due and RAI Sport (13e) and maybe others, but most broadcasters don’t make it easy to find which events are on which channels when (see above flame of the BBC), so good luck!
Update: highlights of Men’s Road Race at 2300 CET tonight (Saturday) on Eurosport (19e).
The Clásica San Sebastián is on RAI Sport Più at 13e, advertised as 1545-1730 CET today (Sat 2 Aug), but experience suggests those times may vary.
I’m surprised that this race seems fairly hard to find. Thanks to Bernie S for the tip. I hope the summer storms here don’t disrupt my viewing.
Bernie S also mentioned that ETB Sat (19e) are covering Subida Urkiola on Sunday 3 Aug from 1550 to 1700 cet
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