{"id":128531,"date":"2025-09-08T09:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128531\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T09:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:56:08","slug":"no-wonder-cyclings-dying-in-this-country-fuming-fans-slam-itv-for-ruining-geraint-thomas-retirement-party-by-ditching-tour-of-britain-finale-for-horse-rac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128531\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNo wonder cycling\u2019s dying in this country\u201d: Fuming fans slam ITV for \u201cruining\u201d Geraint Thomas retirement party by ditching Tour of Britain finale for horse racing + more on the live blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the final few wet kilometres of this year\u2019s Tour de France in Paris, Ned Boulting\u2019s phone must have assumed that something was horribly wrong, due to the seemingly endless barrage of social media notifications popping up on its home screen.<\/p>\n

As the sport\u2019s biggest race faded from free-to-air television in the UK, fans rushed to their favourite platforms to pay tribute to ITV\u2019s almost two and a half decades of Tour coverage, and mourn the loss of a British cycling institution.<\/p>\n

On Sunday afternoon, however, on the similarly sodden streets of Cardiff, Boulting\u2019s timeline (and that of the poor ITV cycling social media manager) was blowing up once again. But this time, for entirely different reasons.<\/p>\n

\"Geraint<\/p>\n

Simon Wilkinson\/SWpix.com<\/p>\n

Because, as we approached the final 25km of yesterday\u2019s sixth and final stage of the Tour of Britain \u2013 and the final 25km of Geraint Thomas\u2019s cycling career \u2013 commentator Marty MacDonald leaned into the microphone to quietly tell us that, ahem, ITV4\u2019s coverage of the race was about to abruptly end.<\/p>\n

Why? Because some horse racing, namely the final round of the Sky Bet Sunday Series from York, was due to start.<\/p>\n

And if, for some weird reason, you were looking to catch the end of a race hanging in the balance, and to witness a part of British cycling history, viewers were instructed to load up the always reliably ITVX app.<\/p>\n

Cue Boulting\u2019s phone buzzing with frustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s something I didn\u2019t expect to say \u2013 shocking coverage from ITV Cycling,\u201d wrote Mac on Twitter. \u201cMoving the last 20 minutes of coverage of the Tour of Britain from ITV4 to ITVX, why????\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich idiot in your organisation thought it would be a good idea to take the Tour of Britain off ITV4 for the last 20km and put it on ITVX, absolute muppets,\u201d asked a fuming Stuart. \u201cI was enjoying the race and coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

>\u00a0\u201cA sad day for cycling\u201d: Gutted fans bid adieu to ITV\u2019s iconic Tour de France coverage and mourn \u201cscandalous\u201d loss of free-to-air cycling in UK due to \u201ccorporate greed\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThanks a lot ITV,\u201d added James Webb. \u201cI\u2019d watched every live stage of the Tour of Britain until you decided to move the last 30 mins to ITVX. Couldn\u2019t get the app to load, by the time I got the livestream they were practically in final sprint. Ruined it. Why change for the last 30 minutes?!?\u201d<\/p>\n

And Dave Newton was even angrier: \u201cCover every minute of every stage of the Tour of Britain except the most important last 15km just to switch to a bang average horse race.<\/p>\n

\u201cTotal disrespect to the viewers and especially Geraint Thomas. Utter incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter excellent coverage all week, today of all days they decided to cut off the coverage just before the end,\u201d added Tony. \u201cThey have three other channels that could have shown the coverage but repeats of films and shows are more important. Total disregard for live sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cITV dumping the last 20km of the final stage of the Tour of Britain onto ITVX is rather pathetic,\u201d wrote Jonny.<\/p>\n

\"Geraint<\/p>\n

Simon Wilkinson\/SWpix.com<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, others were dismayed that Geraint Thomas\u2019s big moment, as he called time on his illustrious career in front of an adoring home crowd, was ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cFantastic move from ITV moving the Tour of Britain finale to ITVX with no prior warning,\u201d a sarcastic Marina Gange applauded.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just one of our nation\u2019s greatest sportspeople and Olympians finishing his career in his home race. Not important clearly. \u00a0No wonder you lost the Tour, rank amateurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ouch.<\/p>\n

And Tony Coleman said: \u201cITV\u2019s devotion to the Sunday Series about to get a backlash? Shunting the closing kms of the Tour of Britain and Geraint Thomas\u2019s retirement (which they\u2019ve been talking about all week) on to ITVX is the most bizarre decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA big well done to the arses at ITV, who decided to move the last few hours of Tour of Britain cycling to ITVX instead of maybe moving it to ITV1,\u201d wrote Pip. \u201cGive it the coverage it bloody deserves. Push the knife deeper by ending the show without showing Geraint Thomas speech. Nice one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u2026 the final day of the Tour of Britain, Geraint Thomas\u2019s final day in the saddle following a truly epic career and neither ITV nor TNT have his final pedal strokes live. a GB race, GB cyclist, GB channels, and nope, not on. Shame on you both (and you know what you can do with ITVX).\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally, Charlie Pittock said: \u201cITV cutting off Tour of Britain coverage in final 30 minutes of our last British TdF winner\u2019s career. It\u2019s no wonder cycling\u2019s dying in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Geraint<\/p>\n

Simon Wilkinson\/SWpix.com<\/p>\n

For his part, Boulting \u2013 although I\u2019m sure he wasn\u2019t in charge of the scheduling \u2013 took to his Substack<\/a> to apologise for the abrupt end to a week of otherwise great coverage of Britain\u2019s biggest bike race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorth saying that the final stage ended badly for ITV\u2019s coverage,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe network, overwhelmed by live sport commitments, opted to pull the race from ITV4 before its conclusion, because of horse racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough it continued to be broadcast on ITVX, not enough warning or explanation was given, and it left people confused and cross, which is entirely understandable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, my timeline which I am accustomed to being a safe space, has become a receptacle for frustration, into which I have been assiduously copied. All I can say to you all is sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, over at TNT Towers, everyone in the PR department is breathing a sigh of relief that it\u2019s not them on the receiving end of a social media pile on from cycling fans for a change\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the final few wet kilometres of this year\u2019s Tour de France in Paris, Ned Boulting\u2019s phone must…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-128531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}