[Where to watch 2010 Giro d'Italia]
Update: Universal Sports comes to the rescue!
The online and broadcast sports programmer will offer Giro d'Italia coverage on a live webcast and a slightly delayed TV broadcast beginning Saturday.
See the Universal Sports Cycling Dashboard for more information as it develops. Apparently the deal was just inked earlier Thursday.
Update II — From VeloNews:
“Universal will broadcast the Giro live everyday online without commentary. Then it will broadcast each stage on its cable channel at noon EST with commentary from Todd Gogulski and Steve Schlanger. Scott Ogle will be on the ground for Universal in Italy. The TV coverage will then repeat from 9-11 p.m. and 11 p.m.-1 a.m. EST. “
Two of the guys involved in Universal Sports cut their teeth on cycling back with the Red Zinger and Coors Classic. One of them, executive producer David Michaels, had been negotiating with the Giro organizers for months. The deal was completed Thursday morning.
Previously: If you're thinking you'll catch coverage of the Giro d'Italia on Versus — the “all-Lance-all-the-time” network during the Tour de France — then guess again.
Unless events change, Versus will be completely out of the picture for coverage of the Giro d'Italia, which begins Saturday and runs through May 31. That omission even includes the network's Sunday cycling show, which is in hiatus until June 7, and its website.
Don't despair, though. There are European video and audio feeds that will be streaming the 100th anniversary of the first Giro d'Italia. You just need to know where to look.
The Steephill and CyclingFans websites are the best places to check for up-to-date news on where to catch streaming video and audio on your computer. For instance, they both had links to coverage of the Giro team presentations that started shortly after 10 a.m. (EST) on Thursday.
Here are some of the live video and audio streams they're suggesting. Be warned; the coverage probably won't be in English. Last year, however, you could watch the Italian video feed and listen to the Eurosport audio feed in English simultaneously.
Rai Sport Piu
TVChannelsFree
WorldLiveTV
Eurosport Audio
I'd highly recommend checking back to Steephill and CyclingFans for times and viability of these feeds when the Stage 1 team time trials begin on Saturday in Venice. Steephill also offers Giro maps, photos and race results.
As always, one of the best ways to keep track of the race is by using the CyclingNews and VeloNews text updates. Call me old school, but I often feel that I can get a better race picture from reading those updates, and I can scroll back to read how a breakaway developed or who got dropped on a climb.
Something that has taken hold this year are updates from the Twitter universe. Occasionally you'll find something from Christian Vande Velde, or Johan Bruyneel or Lance Armstrong among the Twitter messages that offers some insight into the race.
Look for Giro Twitters on the Giro d'Italia page at Biking Bis. Also, TourdeTweets has a Giro feed that includes avatars and is more interactive.
Italy's La Gazzetta del Sporto newspaper has full online information about the stages, routes, elevations, teams, standings and more. It's in Italian, although there's an English version that appears to also be mostly in Italian.
Regardless of how you keep up with the Giro, enjoy the show.
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