The Tour de Pologne is definitely one of the best opportunities for fans to admire the beauty of our country while competing in sports. Magnificent landscapes are a permanent element of many cycling races, but do viewers want to watch them 10 km before the finish line, when competitors are fighting for the stage victory? Not necessarily. And that is exactly what happened during the fourth stage of the Tour de Pologne.
TVP Sport's huge blunder during the Tour de Pologne broadcast
For the most part, the broadcast went smoothly, but as we know, most doesn't mean all. Serious problems began at the end, when the fate of the fourth stage was being decided. Fans in front of the TV, instead of the cyclists, could then watch commercials, fans along the route and landscapes from a considerable distance. An absurd situation, to which internet users reacted immediately.
“Awful execution of the last kilometres of the Tour de Pologne by TVP Sport. All you can see are fans and advertisements” – wrote Tomasz Kalemba from Interia. “The best shown end of the Tour de Pologne stage in history…”, “A few kilometres to the finish line and they don't have any working cameras on the cyclists, only views of forests from a helicopter for a few minutes” – these are some of the other comments on the X portal.
The cyclists were going… too slowly?
Fortunately, at the very finish, the view from the cameras returned to the cyclists, thanks to which the very end could be seen on TVP Sport. Where did all the fuss and such a fatal mistake come from? Well, according to the journalist of “Przegląd Sportowy”, and formerly TVP Sport, Sebastian Parfjanowicz, the blame lies with… the cyclists. Specifically, the very slow pace of the fourth stage, which caused the plane with the transmission signal from the Tour de Pologne to land due to lack of fuel.
The winner of the sprint stage from Kudowa-Zdrój to Prudnik (195.3 km) was the Dutchman Olav Kooij, who overtook the Irishman Sam Bennett and the Dane Mads Pedersen. The Polish representative Stanisław Aniołkowski was classified in sixth place, while the leader of the race remained Jonas Vingegaard. Among the Poles, Rafał Majka is still the highest in the general classification (21st place).