Sunday, March 28, 2010

The delights of following Scottish curling on "British" Eurosport

When the dedicated British version of sports channel Eurosport was launched a decade or so back, it was billed as the end of frustration for British viewers - never again would they be left watching a little-known Belgian playing an even-littler-known Slovenian at Roland Garros, while Greg Rusedski or Tim Henman was playing on another court. But this seems to be yet another instance where the word 'British' mysteriously translates as 'English'. Last night, extraordinarily, Eurosport International showed extensive live coverage of the crucial women's world curling championship play-off between Scotland and Sweden, while British Eurosport showed just the final fifteen minutes, apparently feeling that it was far more appropriate to fill the preceding eighty minutes with recorded coverage of a cycle race in France - which at a cursory glance appeared to feature no British contenders (even of the higher-grade south-of-Tweed variety). Is a Scotland v Sweden curling match really of more interest to Eurosport International viewers in Israel than to British Eurosport viewers in Scotland? The schedulers appear to genuinely believe so.

Anyway, leaving such frustrations aside, the good news is that Scotland defeated Sweden to set up a semi-final against Jennifer Jones' formidable Canadian rink. It seems that British Eurosport will in their benevolence be showing considerable recorded coverage at 7.30 this morning, so I won't give away the scoreline, but suffice to say it might just be worth a little look...

1 comment:

  1. I know what you mean, for the first six ends of the final we were stuck with a third-round tennis match between a Dane and a Russian!

    Hard luck to Eve and the girls tonight - so, so close.

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