Anyone know whether there will be World Cup cross country skiing video coverage this season? Universal Sports seems to have only alpine on their schedule.
FasterSkier Forums » Racing
World Cup Coverage
(36 posts)-
Posted 2 years ago #
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From what i have heard their will be. Chad Salmala who is doing the olympic coverage will be commentating.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Thanks, James -- can you tell us more? I'm surprised more people haven't responded here ... the Universal coverage is a big deal for our sport ... and it seems to be going downhill rapidly. The small annoyances last year were/are bad enough (not creating a separate XC schedule page, which at least WCSN did, not having spoiler alerts on the video pages, stupid taglines like "watch the action from the slopes of Otepaa" etc.) But then not having audio for the World Championships online -- and not keeping the video for the old races posted online -- just terrible. How many young skiers could we have turned on if they could have watched the medals in CZ with real coverage? And now Universal has just redesigned their page (within the last couple weeks?), and while it lists Nordic Combined as one of their sport, it does not list XC! (Go to the homepage and toggle "All Sports.") I mean, this is getting surreal! Does anyone know anyone who has a brother who knows someone at Universal? I hope FS does not mind these comments …I know Universal has been a sponsor. But I would like to think that Universal would welcome some suggestions – unless they have just decided to tank Nordic all together.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I agree with FlintHills... it seems cross country coverage was much better under WCSN and seems to be going downhill under Universal Sports. It's disappointing to look toward this coming season with little certainty of being able to watch World Cup Cross Country Skiing. Is there anything that can be done?
Posted 2 years ago # -
I never experienced coverage under WCSN. This is because it wasn't free. I'm poor. I'll take anything Universal gives me. I had many many problems with their coverage, including poor quality video, slow load times, strange screen problems in which only half of the video feed was shown in the viewer...
But their coverage was free, and it was always available to some extent. I can't say the same of WCSN.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I coach with Chad, who is also doing all of the olympic races... nordic, Biathlon, and nordic combined, and he is flying out to Cali(i think) the day after or at least at the end of the weekends of the WC races to announce them... both for coverage and his experience.
Posted 2 years ago # -
all of you need to go onto our usenet newsgroup rec.skiing.nordic aka RSN and look for certain upcoming posts about tv video bit torrents. The recordings people make have much better picture quality than Universal Sports plus you don't have listen to those American you know who's go on and on about the old days back in back in the Eastern Division, Putney Vermont, Stratton prepsters, Lake Placid etc. Instead you get analysts who can pronounce names correctly and have extensive knowledge on current and recent European racing history and personalities.
Posted 2 years ago # -
is the usenet newsgroup a google group or what? link?
Posted 2 years ago # -
No, you need a usenet client to access that. Its an oldschool internet thing, not many people use those anymore in the US.
I'm not sure exactly how they work, I used to have one but couldn't really figure it out. You can find a lot of the races on bittorrent or the like.
Shreddir, if you would, could you please post the links to the torrents in this forum when they are available?
Posted 2 years ago # -
you should be able to see RSN on a browser here: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.skiing.nordic/topics?hl=en&lnk
Posted 2 years ago # -
hey everyone thanks for the various posts and info. james, your news is certainly good ... but does this mean that we should give up any hope of same-day coverage? (i hope universal will continue to provide live feed without any audio ...) can you please ask chad to pass along -- without ticking anyone off -- some of our concerns to the powers that be at universal?
bit torrents are a great option, but we need to press universal to improve their coverage not only for convenience because that’s the only way that the more causal fan is going to be exposed.
shreddir your comments were hilarious. the best commentators are those british guys on sky sports. gotta love hearing a race called by guys who sound like they are chilling over a few guinnesses next to the fire.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Uhh...?FlintHillsXC, I think you mean David Goldstrum and his partner--whatsis name..Mike(?)- over at British Eurosport. As far as I know, Sky Sports is only interested in carrying "football" like Chelsea or Man Utd. not nordic ski racing.
I agree about the live raw feed, if only they would increase the webstream to at least 2000 kbit along with high quality live sound; that would kick ass. This summer I got used to watching full length show everything Golden League track and field meets instead of watching Versus Channel coverage.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I've definitely heard a lot of mispronounced names on the Universal Sports commentary.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I stumbled onto this page on Universal Sports. Hope it means they will be posting video coverage.
http://www.universalsports.com/news/article/newsid=371289.html#cross+country+centralPosted 2 years ago # -
According to tvguide.com, the Beitostolen races will be on tv on channel 5.2 in Seattle next Wed, Thur, and Fri. (Nov 25,26,27) I believe 5.2 is Universal Sports and is channel 115 on local cable here. Hope this is all true.
Posted 2 years ago # -
OK,we've got Eurosport broadcast video here:
and relays are here:
enjoy
Posted 2 years ago # -
Universal Sports will be posting video this season. There will generally be a 1-4 day delay, and it is not clear if they will have every race.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Hi. We're trying out a new way for us of dumping our USST video onto the net. Mind you, this is not live or even close to complete coverage, but will instead be a way for the national team to share what is being filed from races and training. Most recently I uploaded our coverage of the Beitostolen World Cup distance races. It's good footage for coaches and athletes to gauge technique and world class pace, but not so great for entertainment. I hope people will find this useful.
MattPosted 2 years ago # -
Now the Universal Sports TV schedule is saying they will be showing 1 hour episodes of Beitostolen starting Wednesday at 5pm and 8pm Pacific with more hourlongs on Thursday 11am,5pm,8pm Pacific and another showing at 11am Friday. There's an additional showing the following Monday. The content description is pretty poor. They don't say which events e.g. womens 10k vs mens 15k is going to covered on which hour or whether it's all going to be only one hour of short highlights that's just repeated over and over. I think I'll just stick with start to finish Norwegian coverage and British Eurosport broadcasts for now.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I watched the Universal Sports broadcast (on local cable TV) today. It was the 10k and 15k distance races from last weekend in Beitostolen. Commentators were Steve Schlanger and Marcus Nash. I thought the commentary was better than last year. I suppose tomorrow they will be showing the relays though the Universal Sports web site still doesn't indicate the details.
Posted 2 years ago #
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