The is one of those events that is a fixture of the British sporting spring. As the draw to a close you can be sure that the most versatile riders in the world will descend on Gloucestershire to compete in one of the most demanding events in sport.
It's an event that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has been covering on television since 1956 and this year the programming is available on Saturday via broadband and the red button and on Sunday it's on ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO.
On Saturday the whole of the cross country will be live on the red button and on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ website from 11am when the first rider will set out to tackle the 29 fences and 46 jumping efforts spread out across four miles of the Badminton parkland.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO programme on Sunday runs from 1pm to 3pm and will feature a preview of the event, news of the dressage, extensive highlights of the cross country and live coverage of the final phase - the show jumping.
Read the rest of this entry
A dress code is not the first thing you associate with sport: the action's more important than the frippery. But it can actually be a bit of a .
I was recently at a Premier League club lunch - which said on the ticket "no jeans or trainers" - and the club chairman had to go personally to rescue a VIP who'd been refused entry because he was wearing, err, jeans and trainers.
And as we've seen in recent days with of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s alleged "jacket and tie" format, the question of what our presentation teams wear on air can be controversial too.
Read the rest of this entry
We have just put through some significant upgrades to our blog system. The good news is that they should make life much easier for you. We know there have been publishing delays in the past and these should be eased.
The biggest change you will notice is that you now have to register in order to make a comment. You can do so here or by following the link below this post.
Registration brings the ´óÏó´«Ã½ blog network into line with other interactive platforms on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ like and and will enable us to manage your comments better.
Read the rest of this entry
From 1800 BST on 16 April, we'll be doing some essential maintenance to all of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s blogs. As a result of this, you won't be able to leave any comments on our blog posts from that time until Thursday morning.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience.
For the , the streets of London will play host to a "sporting" spectacle which will be seen by millions of people, not just around the UK but throughout the world.
This week, though, the only crowd "demonstration" we expect our cameras to capture are pictures of passionate and enthusiastic support for the 35,000 runners of the London Marathon. Some of whom are putting their reputations on the line while many more are raising millions of pounds for charity.
Read the rest of this entry
Smugness is not something we do at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport but recently we’ve allowed ourselves just a little smile as news broke that we had secured new contracts for Formula One and . More immediately, however, our audiences will be able to enjoy the first of a three-year contract that we have won for exclusive coverage of .
Unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held every year at the same location, in Georgia. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has broadcast the Masters since and, as with many of our other major events, . We regularly receive queries about why we don’t show more from the four tournament days. The simple answer is that we transmit every single second that is permitted by Augusta National and the host broadcasters , who only in recent years have been allowed to show all 18 holes of the final round.
Read the rest of this entry
Freedom of information is already a recurring theme of this Olympics.
It’s something the grappled with in one small form over the issue of whether to allow .
The main concern for the IOC was that of media rights – ie a blog could in theory be used to ‘cover’ the event as a journalist tool.
The way round this was to that: "The IOC considers blogging ... as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism," and to allow bloggers only to do so from unaccredited areas.
Read the rest of this entry
At 4.15pm on Saturday, the tapes will go up on the 161st .
About nine and a half minutes later, the winner - if the going isn’t like mud - will have crossed the line and, for jockey, trainer, owner and even punter, the experience could be well be a life-changing one.
Who that winner will be is another guess. But with all their connections will be hoping it's them.
Read the rest of this entry
Thanks to everyone who has commented on this blog over the past 24 hours or so about the new-look ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport website . If nothing else the volume of reaction shows how much people care about this site, so I want to express my gratitude to those who have taken an interest and expressed their views.
The feedback we are receiving is all useful and will help as we continue to develop the site. As I’ve made clear on a couple of occasions now, the changes we implemented yesterday were just the start of a long-term project to redesign and we will constantly review what we have done as part of the process of providing a first-class sports service.
In terms of the issues that have been raised by you, there are some recurring themes which we are more than happy to discuss. My colleague Julia Whitney, who looks after design and user experience for the ´óÏó´«Ã½â€™s News and Sport websites, has run through some of the major questions (about widened pages, the use of white space and the new banner) on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Internet Blog. I won’t repeat what Julia says, but will instead pick up on some other issues which are specifically to do with Sport and relate to our output, rather than design questions.
Read the rest of this entry
