We’ve had a gloriously sunny day in the studio, we’ve seen some great action, Jessica Ennis, goodnight

Well John Rawling asked me to write a review of the coverage on Channel Four after I expressed my displeasure at the coverage when it was announced. Mostly I was discontent with Ortis Deley as presenter as I didn’t think he had it in him to be the front man for a major live sporting event. I think I was proved right.

I won’t jump on Ortis’ back here as there are plenty of comments from my readers on the blog post linked above so I won’t get into it. Clearly he was totally out of his depth and the title of this blog post I think sums up everything. So we’ll move on to the other aspects of the coverage.

John Rawling was exactly how I described him in my original post. He is a good solid pair of hands who will never let anyone down. He describes the action well and shows good enthusiasm when needed. However I still don’t think he has it in him to go that memorial call that people will talk about and remember. I have spoken before about Ian Darke so let’s talk about Gus Johnson. He was a CBS announcer for both College Basketball and the NFL but has now moved on to FOX where he’ll cover the NFL and College Football. Here are two YouTube clips – one of his best moments during March Madness and the next of a call on a hail mary from David Garrard last season that blew up twitter.

Now that is special.

As for Rob Walker I was a bit meh to be honest. I just wasn’t feeling it. I thought neither Dean Macey nor Iwan Thomas were brilliant either. I really didn’t like Iwan Thomas screaming ‘Yes, Yes, Yes’ as Dai Green was winning his gold for the 400metres hurdles. It reminded me of Euro 2004 when Joe Royle screamed for about five seconds when Frank Lampard equalised for England in their quarter-final with Portugal. A good co-commentator first of all doesn’t speak over the play-by-play guy and speaks only when prompted and/or to add valuable insight. Screaming ‘Yessssss’ is not valuable insight in my view.

Also the adverts were bloody annoying and not sticking with the Pole Vault final with only two left to jump to go to some crap daytime show that could easily have been pushed back five minutes was a disgrace. Channel Four basically had Michael Johnson and John Rawling who in my view can hold their heads high and Rob Walker didn’t do anything wrong but just didn’t grab me. The rest of the team were disappointing and nowhere near their BBC colleagues and when I say nowhere near I mean nowhere near.

If Channel Four are serious about athletics then they need to take a long hard look at themselves and make major changes before the Palalympics and the 2013 World Athletics Championships but that is just one pointless bloggers view I suppose…

Anyway time is running out…we’ve had a gloriously sunny day in the studio, we’ve seen some great action, Jessica Ennis, goodnight

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