Allegation: French tv went to commercial after 1st lap of Olympic women's 800. Can anyone verify this happened?

Knowing France, it was probably a commercial for cigarettes, at that.

Damn dude, chill out

Rojo: I was in France during the Olympics and from memory I missed watching the women’s 800 but watched most of the other middle and distance races for both genders and would be surprised if this had happened. By the way I was alternating watching the Olympics in France on three channels between France TV 2 and 3 and Eurosport and the coverage in general was excellent. There were a few minor issues such as switching from the track and field to some other sport when French people were taking part but it was not a major issue overall.

Another issue that I had if you want to call it that, is that one of the commentators on Eurosport appeared to have very little knowledge of track and field, and I’m sorry I forget his name, but it was really quite shocking to me to listen his lack of knowledge with regard to track and field in general and I’m wondering how he got into that position. Contrast this with Great Britain where they basically only hire experts, mostly former famous athletes, to commentate on track and field. Much better coverage and much better information.

As this was France, I'd guess that the director disappeared in the middle of the 800m to carry on an extra-marital affair

Allegedly, that commercial drew better ratings. Lol

Good thing it didn’t cut out coverage of throwing events…. Oh wait, nobody covers the throwing events… ever

I live in France, and can confirm that their T&F coverage in Tokyo was horrendous and all over the place. I don't remember which race it was but something like this definitely happened, to the point where you're just sat there thinking "surely not"??

I do however remember watching the women's 800m but I think by then had abandoned the TV and was watching other countries' feeds on the ipad via a VPN,

I think it's fairly obvious by what was meant here by "French TV". Their Olympic coverage was split between channels 2, 3 and 4 with the option of Eurosport for those who have it. Her statement is not quite the geopolitical drama you're making it out to be

I'm french and I can confirm it happened, things like that happened several times in fact, I was so disappointed I couldn't watch Renelle Lamote's semi-final (our best french female distance runner) because they went on an ad break DURING the race.

It happened on France TV 2 and 3, the national free coverage of the Olympics. A lot of people here complained about how bad the coverage was and their horrible choices ( like to put horse riding qualification round instead of french team basketball game etc...)

The coverage from Eurosport was great though but you had to pay a subscription to watch it, and that's what big sport fans did.

I'm French, I watch the Olympics / WC every year on TV (France 2 / France 3) , and we often see commercials even during a race, for instance during the heats of women's 400m hurdles.

They always put ads between races and sometimes during races...

RunRagged wrote:

What on earth is "French TV" supposed to mean?

A French television station. That's what it means. Very simple. The number of local, national, cable, satellite, whatever channels is totally irrelevant.

Let me understand this, you are disputing that she was watching a French television station that was broadcasting the womens 800m final and it went to commercial after the first lap? You think she just wanted to tell a lie to the press and decided out of all the lies she could make up, this was it?

You got yourself all worked up over a criticism of a, ehm, French television station?

CallmeCoco wrote:

I'm French, I watch the Olympics / WC every year on TV (France 2 / France 3) , and we often see commercials even during a race, for instance during the heats of women's 400m hurdles.

They always put ads between races and sometimes during races...

So this right here basically confirms that it was entirely plausible that this happened. Not the end of the world but completely corroborates her story. End of discussion.

Rojo when are you stepping down from letsrun?

This is something the NBC would do for events without Americans.