An open letter to Eurosport

Where the swimming should have been

Dear Eurosport,

I hope you’re well. There’s been a world swimming championships going on these past few days. I say that in case you’ve not noticed; a glance at your schedules this weekend would suggest you forgot all about it. After all, while the swimmers were racing in Istanbul, we were treated to replays and delayed coverage of cross-country skiing, luge and ski jumping.

It had all started so well on the first day though, with hours of heats coverage and a full set of finals, live as well. It made the rest of the competition so much more of a disappointment though, especially when you stopped halfway through a session. Why did you have to tease us with full coverage then snatch it away?

We hear that on Saturday Ryan Lochte set a world record in the 100IM semi-finals and that Hannah Miley won a 200m IM bronze. We can’t be sure, because we couldn’t watch it, live or delayed, but we imagine it was quite something to see.

We know that swimming is, in broadcasting terms, a minority sport and as such you show only 3 or 4 competitions a year. But there are sometimes 12 or more rounds of the cross-country skiing world cup, and 30 of the ski-jump world cup, and yet it still takes precedence over a biennial world championship. Things like that really make us swimming fans feel unwanted.

We’re already looking forward to next year; we hope to see you in Barcelona for the long course world championships. Perhaps we can even watch all of it together.

Yours sincerely,

The swimming fans of Great Britain