BBC ATHLETICS COVERAGE IS THE PITS !

I have always enjoyed watching athletics on television though have to admit that I've often found the commentators and studio experts to be over the top, overly jingoistic, hopelessly bad, and, frankly, annoying. Sadly, the World Championships which are just concluding in London have been no different.

The BBC's coverage has been the traditional 'wall-to-wall, whether or not there's been anything happening or anything to say. Race commentaries, particularly those of Brendan Foster, have often been little more than a resumé for one or more of the competitors rather than an actual commentary on the race. In common with the appalling David Coleman from years ago, the commentators have frequently talked utter nonsense, telling viewers that someone or other was just making his or her effort when it was plain that they were a spent force and going backwards through the field. Foster and the fairly new Steve Backley also seem to suffer from pretty nasty cases of verbal diarrhoea, seemingly unable to say in 10 words what can be said in 10,000 while adding nothing to the actual content. Thank God that Andrew Cotter and Steve Cram have been on hand to alleviate some of the pain.

After every event, assorted competitors have been interviewed, if that's what it can be called, by one Phil Jones, a man with a list of questions which he's repeated over and over again; what on earth is the point of asking breathless athletes the same stupid questions about whatever they've just done ?

As if that hasn't been enough, the studio presentation, led by the normally excellent Gabby Logan, has been horrendous; we have been subjected to non-stop shrill twitterings from Logan, pointless and highly repetitive drivel from Paula Radcliffe, Jess Ennis, Denise Lewis and Colin Jackson, with only Michael Johnson sometimes present to add some calm sanity to proceedings. Clearly the BBC, in pursuit of some sort of equality targets, decided to use a predominantly female studio panel which, quite frankly, has been awful.

Little has changed in the BBC's coverage of athletics for decades. They seem to think that the best qualification for being a presenter is to have been a competitor, ignoring anything else. While knowledge of the events is obviously very important, an ability to commentate realistically and without the hyperbole so beloved these days is surely at least as important. Steve Cram does this, Brendan Foster does not; Phil Jones' post-event interviews are repetitive and banal tripe and the studio discussion has been mostly pointless verbiage.

That I and millions of others have paid for this through our licence fees appals me.