“Pogačar conquers one of the most famous climbs of all,” Ned Boulting roars.
“Tadej Pogačar takes a bow in front of the Italian fans. What a victory, he will be in the maglia rosa tomorrow.”
The crowd outside, below Santuario di Oropa, is at fever pitch, the commentary box windows muffling the roar.
Next to Boulting, Matt Stephens is on his feet, watching the Slovenian ride over the finish line, physically about 30m away, several seconds ahead of the monitors in front of them. Very meta.
“What a win, a difficult situation he turned around. This man is on a different level,” Stephens says into his headphone mic.
This is the briefest snippet that the listeners heard during the finale of stage 2 of the 2024 Giro d’Italia from two of the finest commentators in the game, but there’s an awful lot that you don’t see.
The barest bones of commentary is answering the question: what is going on?
It’s arguably easier to do for sports that are confined to courts, tracks or stadia, with far fewer participants or permutations, than in pro cycling.
Like an enormous lasagne, the sport has layer upon layer to delve into: why is that rider controlling the bunch? Who is moving up the side?
What is the next route obstacle? Why are those sheep gambolling across the road?
It constantly demands explanation, elaboration and reaction, with culture, history and geography also worthy of mention as races zoom around countries.
Boulting and Stephens must have an all-round knowledge as robust as their vocal cords. Retakes are impossible, silence is not an option.
The commentary box is no place for the introverted or ill-prepared.
This dynamic duo are touring the Giro d’Italia, commentating for the world feed in situ from start to finish each day.
The telecast, arranged by race organisers RCS, is provided to international broadcasters for global distribution – and we were invited along for the ride.
Tactical masterclass
Boulting is the lead commentator, calling play-by-play action and throwing in historical tidbits, while Stephens is here to inject colour, offering storytelling and analysis.
It’s a balancing act, knowing when to throw across to one another.
“We’ve got a strong relationship. You need a pairing where it’s not a competition. It should be a relationship, a partnership, to basically better inform the viewer about everything,” Stephens says.
“And also entertain them and create a narrative arc that gives tension as well. Rather than just trying to come up with more facts than somebody else. It’s about sharing.”
With a vast, invisible audience ranging from novices to connoisseurs, it boils down to creating commentary that “doesn’t alienate experts on the sport or those who know nothing,” says Stephens.
Assuming knowledge is dangerous; that often means deconstructing tactics in plain English, so that every viewer is looked after.
There is a little theatre to be played at times too. When a speculative attack goes, which the pair know full well will be caught by a charging bunch, the attempt cannot be patronised.
“How honest can you be? How much do you want to prick that balloon and take away the suspense? You’ve got to breathe some sort of hope into it,” Boulting says.
Occasionally, even these veterans are mystified by certain actions. In that scenario, they don’t try to hide their confusion.
“That allows you to explore: well, why are they doing that? Because we’re both very interested in it tactically,” Stephens adds.
A former British champion bike racer and policeman, Stephens never thought he’d be on the mic. He made a few Tour Series TV appearances in the early 2010s as a team manager, giving brief insight to camera.
After sending in his CV to Eurosport, his first appearance was on the 2013 Arctic Race of Norway alongside Carlton Kirby and he’s become an established, much-loved commentator, working primarily for Eurosport, Flanders Classics and RCS.
A longtime presenter, reporter and voice of ITV cycling coverage, Boulting was persuaded to try commentary by producers looking for successors to Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen.
He started in 2015, having resisted their overtures for years.
“Because I thought there’s nothing more exposing than being on air while the bike race is happening for revealing that you don’t quite get the sport,” he says.
“I was still dealing with my long-lasting impostor syndrome that came from being an outsider to it.”
Calling the bunch sprint was a worry for him beforehand, but he discovered that, especially at prominent races, it’s usually straightforward to identify a winner, given every sprinter is a big name.
Ironically, the hardest bit of commentary is often when a leader drops everyone else comfortably with 5km to go and is in the lead for 20 minutes – just what we saw at the Giro d’Italia with Pogačar’s dominant ride to glory.
They have to have more facts up their sleeves, an extra gear and tone to kick it up as the winner approaches the finish line.
Building tension or finding more superlatives is tough when most of the drama or jeopardy is gone. But they manage it.
Neither of them worry about the negative feedback they might get on social media.
“You’re never going to please everybody, but as long as you please a majority,” Stephens says.
“Our commentary doesn’t get a lot of flak or seem to polarise a lot of people.”
“Maybe people just turn it down,” Boulting retorts, laughing. “So they’ve got nothing to go at.”
Details men
The 54-year-olds are two of the best in the business. That reputation comes from experience, personality and knowledge – after all, that’s power, as the old adage goes.
What we hear on air is simply the tip of the iceberg, with their umpteen unseen hours of work submerged.
The pair commit so many stats, facts and unfamiliar faces to memory, in case, say, little-known Italian rider Davide Gabburo (a favourite of the pair) gets into a breakaway.
Stephens has boxes of fact-filled A4-ring-bound books in his garage from over the years, while Boulting has three different “layers” of notes built up on his computer, as well as plenty of commentary-enriching recollections and observations that aren’t easy to find on Google, many of them told face-to-face by a rider.
For every stage of a Grand Tour, relevant real-time data is essential. They follow certain teams, media and riders on social media to augment their up-to-date news and views.
In front of them at the Giro, their laptops have cycling statistics, websites and stage profiles, as well as start lists and results on paper.
Boulting and Stephens both jot hand-written notes on the morning before they start commentating. It reminds them where the race should happen in earnest and the expected contenders for it.
“The scope of a Grand Tour, or any bike race actually, is so overwhelmingly vast that you have to be quite focused about what’s going to matter on any given day and drill down into that,” Boulting says.
“That’s why I think writing stuff down by hand before you start talking matters enormously. There’s something about the physical process of putting it down into analogue shape and form.”
Much of their commentary can be done either from home or from offices, such as Discovery’s HQ in the London suburb of Chiswick.
However, sometimes they are dispatched around the world to races.
“The work is a privilege anyway, but to be able to enjoy these places is magnificent,” Stephens says.
One of their favourite events is the Tour of Sicily, which takes place in April. The shorter distances involved afford a little time to soak up towns they’d ordinarily never see, which adds to the experience.
Covering the Giro for three weeks offers up some logistical tests.
“It’s quite a graft,” Stephens says. “People might imagine Ned and I have a driver. No, we picked up a hire car ourselves and we’ll drive the entire race and all the transfers between us.”
They still find time to waffle excitedly about the race off-air, when not singing along to favourites such as the Bee Gees in the car.
“We have a brilliant time, but the days are long. We’re on air [start] flag to [finish] line,” Stephens says.
To state the obvious, that means they need to be at the day’s finish before the race starts.
Even aiming for a daily arrival two hours before action gets under way, to allow for delays and to finalise their notes, there have been nightmares.
Location, location
During the 2018 Giro, Stephens and colleague Rob Hayles got to the finish on Mount Etna after their producer typed it into the sat-nav.
They didn’t notice signage or many fans on the way up – none, in fact.
When the producer asked for information at a roadside shack, they heard his bellowed “Nooooo!” from 100m away like a booming eruption.
They’d come to the wrong side of the volcano, and it was a 90-minute detour.
Once in the right place, Stephens ran a kilometre and got to the commentary box with five minutes spare, slightly out of breath when on air. Crisis narrowly averted.
A memorable experience for Boulting was commentating on the Tour of Langkawi in 48˚C Malaysian tropical heat in a tiny, air conditioning-less box watching a minuscule monitor.
Peers have done their job from vans, with screens balanced precariously on steering wheels. Oh, the glamour.
Nevertheless, being on location improves their commentary, enabling them to witness the fabric of the place, the people, the atmosphere.
At the Giro, their booth is accessed by climbing metal stairs to a second-floor, pop-up box, adjacent to the finish line.
They share it with six other commentators, nattering in different languages, all sitting in front of monitors on foldable metal chairs.
Between Boulting and Stephens' screens, there is a control panel on which they can turn off their microphone to sip water or cough. For up to eight hours a day, that is their universe.
Once in position, the only breaks are for dashes to the toilet or a quick espresso, with their partner covering.
I cannot think of a professional sport that’s more reliant on its commentators to inform and add nuance.
Without their guiding words, it’s like watching a philharmonic orchestra on silent.
Every race has its own rhythm: flat and mountains, light and shade, hours of inaction before minutes of back-to-back, decisive drama.
There is time for them to talk about the areas they’re passing through, with conversational, tangential, podcast-esque patter where their quick wits can roam.
For instance, after the coverage shows a bungee-jumping man in pink, breakaway rider Andrea Piccolo nearly crashes on a corner moments later.
Boulting says on comms: “No piece of elastic to bounce him back onto the road.” It helps to have a way with words.
At other times, they have to follow the action rapid-fire as it changes and evolves. They can only react to the unexpected, and there’s plenty of that in pro cycling.
A case in point: with 12km to go on stage 2, Pogačar tumbles off his bike at slow speed after trying to corner with a puncture.
Boulting's voice rises in volume. The incident could have changed the whole race, but the Slovenian slayer quickly returns to the bunch, unscathed.
As contenders fall back on the final climb and Pogačar moves into the lead, Boulting and Stephens shoot back and forth seamlessly. It is like an aural Torvill and Dean, when most of us would be like Bambi on ice.
Any chatterbox can talk, but this is the true art, dexterously conveying an immense amount of information concisely, calmly, comprehensively – and passionately.
Their shared affection for the sport comes through during their craft. “I want to lift the experience a bit more,” Stephens says.
“That’s why the commentary tone has a rhythm to it, needs to ebb and flow and that crescendo at the end is massively important. I get so enthused by it. I want to channel that feeling of: ‘you’ve got to watch this bike race, it’s so beautiful’.”
