Re: Eurosport - Steve Holdsworth?
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 10:30
Re. the case of mistaken identity!
I'd normally leave everyone to discuss this stuff as they please, and obviously I respect your right to criticise, abuse, praise, whatever... but perhaps as this infamous moment has been raised before, it might merit a hands-up explanation. This was on a small French show, broadcast live, with as I remember it, an eight rounder in the main event - probably early 2007. We were not on site, but in a studio in London, seeing the pictures about one second before viewers. As I'm sure everyone knows, it is not possible for any television station to put broadcasters in every language on site for every single show, and this one was very low priority... As far as I know, there was one junior or inexperienced producer on site, part of whose job was to feed back information to the general production team in Paris, which was then passed on to the various broadcasting teams. Normally this works well enough. This time it didn't. The fight in question was the bottom of the card show opener between a three-fight, unbeaten Russian with no amateur pedigree and a north African with a 4-4 record. Neither of us had seen either of them before. We had a guide sheet sent by email, saying who would be in which corner and who had which colour shorts. I can't remember anything about any announcements, sometimes while these are going on, all we get is a close-up. Anyway the fighter we took to be the Russian - in the 'right' corner and the 'right' colour shorts - not to mention slim, pale and fair skinned... turned out to be the north African. And of course in the other corner the man we thought was the north African, again in the 'right shorts' looking, well, north African...was the Russian. Always, when you're not on site and you don't know bottom of the bill fighters, you check for a name on the shorts, or you catch the announcements, or you know someone in a corner and can extricate yourself from any possible confusion... but this time there was nothing and in our studio, with nobody anywhere telling us anything to the contrary, we plodded along until, as I remember it, the supposed North African journeyman pulled on his tee-shirt after his 'surprise' win - and the tee-shirt had the Russian's name on it. When this was discussed before, someone brought up why it was not corrected... I think that's because our microphones had been thrown across the studio into the wall.... not a high point in anybody's career! All you can do is attempt to make sure it never happens again. There was, of course, a substantial inquest and profuse apologies thrown around...but as the raising of this issue once again proves, the damage was done. I hope that is something in the way of an explanation. And, yes, if I'd been watching it, I've have been beside myself with joy too...
I'd normally leave everyone to discuss this stuff as they please, and obviously I respect your right to criticise, abuse, praise, whatever... but perhaps as this infamous moment has been raised before, it might merit a hands-up explanation. This was on a small French show, broadcast live, with as I remember it, an eight rounder in the main event - probably early 2007. We were not on site, but in a studio in London, seeing the pictures about one second before viewers. As I'm sure everyone knows, it is not possible for any television station to put broadcasters in every language on site for every single show, and this one was very low priority... As far as I know, there was one junior or inexperienced producer on site, part of whose job was to feed back information to the general production team in Paris, which was then passed on to the various broadcasting teams. Normally this works well enough. This time it didn't. The fight in question was the bottom of the card show opener between a three-fight, unbeaten Russian with no amateur pedigree and a north African with a 4-4 record. Neither of us had seen either of them before. We had a guide sheet sent by email, saying who would be in which corner and who had which colour shorts. I can't remember anything about any announcements, sometimes while these are going on, all we get is a close-up. Anyway the fighter we took to be the Russian - in the 'right' corner and the 'right' colour shorts - not to mention slim, pale and fair skinned... turned out to be the north African. And of course in the other corner the man we thought was the north African, again in the 'right shorts' looking, well, north African...was the Russian. Always, when you're not on site and you don't know bottom of the bill fighters, you check for a name on the shorts, or you catch the announcements, or you know someone in a corner and can extricate yourself from any possible confusion... but this time there was nothing and in our studio, with nobody anywhere telling us anything to the contrary, we plodded along until, as I remember it, the supposed North African journeyman pulled on his tee-shirt after his 'surprise' win - and the tee-shirt had the Russian's name on it. When this was discussed before, someone brought up why it was not corrected... I think that's because our microphones had been thrown across the studio into the wall.... not a high point in anybody's career! All you can do is attempt to make sure it never happens again. There was, of course, a substantial inquest and profuse apologies thrown around...but as the raising of this issue once again proves, the damage was done. I hope that is something in the way of an explanation. And, yes, if I'd been watching it, I've have been beside myself with joy too...
