BBC's consistently soft coverage proves athletics needs to push boundaries

Gabi Logan (left) and Denise Lewis lead the BBC's coverage of the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow

For anyone beyond men's football, The BBC remains its most coveted partner, a showcase for their actions and personalities under the noses of millions.

On Sunday, BBC2 showed the women's football match between Arsenal and Tottenham, which ended 1-0, between World Indoor Championships in Glasgow. Neither event was an event that the average sports fan would put on the calendar, but you certainly can't blame the BBC for its push for inclusion or the depth of coverage it gives to such properties it can get for next to nothing in rights auctions.

Athletics coverage remains a stark pattern of consistency, essentially indistinguishable from what it was 30 years ago. While other televised sports have tried, successfully or desperately, to keep up with the times, the BBC's athletics coverage follows the same pattern: an unashamedly partisan emphasis on the British, affable, polite former athletics legends in the studio and a gentle, supportive approach. approach to our brave boys and girls, none of whom have ever been criticized or criticized.

They could have placed a plucky 83rd in egg and spoon, they could have been more evasive in dodging drug testers. than Pablo Escobar in his prime, but you won't hear tough questions from their spiritual uncles and aunts in the BBC pundit chairs.

Still on the microphone are the likes of Steve Cram, hero of Helsinki 1983 and silver medalist in Los Angeles a year later, offering a smooth continuation of the Brendan Foster era. If he had not been taken from us too early, at the age of 87, back in 2013, I have no doubt that David Coleman would still be working.

Steve Cram (left) and Brendan Foster in the commentary booth during London 2012

And who can say that Leonidas of Rhodes, who won four gold medals in a row in the period from 164 to 152 BC. in the armored vehicle race, won't it be there or somewhere nearby in the BBC green room?

Gabby Logan and Claire Balding, ordinary teenagers in their fifties, will probably hold their posts in Paris 2024, Los Angeles 2028, Brisbane 2032 and, presumably, at least Riyadh 2036.

p >A little sand wouldn't hurt

Gabby was inevitably joined in Glasgow by ladies Jessica Ennis-Hill and Denise Lewis: great personalities, legendary achievements, in many ways the best of the British, but, well, it's all a bit friendly, isn't it? Even baby Paula Radcliffe, whose rather unusual personality suggested she might be something of a TV wildcard, is consistently resilient.

Michael Johnson has brought his charisma and authority to the main events and is absolute class; At the other end of the authority scale, how about Jeanette Quakey interviewing Lord Coe on BBC2 on Sunday night, particularly about Johnson's plans for new September championships that could shake things up a la the IPL and LIV Golf? Lord Coe has been allowed to prattle on about 'future preparedness'… 'revisiting the calendar'… 'a fantastic crop of young athletes'… 'one of the world's two sports', and really it just seems like the same old questions to the same old old faces.

It's obvious that the former studio legends have known the younger generation of current competitors since they were little, mentoring them and so on, so you're not necessarily expecting a full Jeremy Paxman, but a little grit wouldn't go amiss.

Cram didn't say much about Johnson's plans for a «competition tour,» other than to say he wasn't too sure what they were, but noted that Johnson «is a talismanic figure.» Certainly. What's your opinion, Paula? “It’s hard to talk about it because we don’t know the plans, but we love our sport.” Roy Keane abuses Jamie Redknapp for your viewing pleasure, live on Sky HD, he is not.

As the excellent Martin Bayfield recently noted in another context, “rugby [in his case, but instructive for everyone else sports that are not men's football] simply cannot hide, but only jumps out from behind a tree and says: “Here we are!”, and then disappears again. He needs oxygen or he'll just fail.”

How does athletics build on moments like Molly Caudrey's win in the pole vault this weekend? Or do we just keep Crammie and company in mothballs and assume that people continue to train for the Olympics every four years because that's how it's always been?