Does anyone else find Gary Richardson consistently sets new lows for inanity in his interviewing?

Every interview focusses on how people "feel": his almost exclusive focus is on emotional responses... on what winning / losing might "mean" for competitors.... on how competitors "coped" with the pressures.... and on the significance of crowd / their response to the support of the crowd.

To compound his inanity.... the interviewing style pretty much forces inane responses from the competitors: he talks to the hardest nuts in sport... to folk who got to the top in large part through their ability to tune out everything extraneous... and makes it clear that they are expected to come across as emotionaly dysfunctional big kids who are overwhelmed with their own achievements and who are near-enough incapable of doing what they do without crowd support.

This is the chap who, faced with Panesar, would waste his entire question session with twaddle along the lines of what if felt like to share a dressingroom with his England colleagues / walk onto the pitch on his debut / take the wicket of SRT.

Of course.... now he's at the Commonwealth Games and asking cometitors at the firing range the same sort of nonsense: seriously annoying.

Maybe he wants to be inanely different?

He does seem to ask the questions that no-one truly is interested in and I just tend to ignore him most of the time.

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Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

Forgive my innocence ... who's Gary Richardson?

For inane interviewing, you can't beat Sally Gunnell. Sounds like Richardson follows her line of 'How do you feel?' as if it's mandatory when faced with a medallist who's out of breath. I'm just waiting for someone one of these days to answer 'I'm ******* knackered, I'm out of breath and I'm not going to waste it answering stupid questions from an idiot like you'. We know how sports people are going to be feeling after a victory. The TV people need to give us interviewers who will enrich the viewing experience rather than annoy the pants off us.

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Just what is going off out there?

He comes from the same school as Garth Crooks.Totally useless.

I lke garth crooks - sharon davis is up there in the Sally Gunnel school of asking knackered athletes silly questions - very annoying but not as annoying a some commentator who does the swimming -high voice, very excitable says nothing of any value - cant remember his name but commentated on redgraves final gold medal in athens. Barry davis is always good value, dont know why he doenst commentate on the odd england match Motty seems to have the monopoly now.

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Sid Waddell is an hiliarious commentator, some of the things he says just seem to fit the picture and they're hilarious. (Originally with the Beeb, now with SKY SPORTS commentating on darts).

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Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

"Theres only one word to describe that - magic darts"

The man is clearly a legend !

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Nothing says "Obey Me" like a bloody head on a fence post!

Martin Bayfield asked some of the least searching questions since Terry Wogan was last on TV during this weekend's rugby union. Maybe it's part of the job? Now, Bayfield is 2.08m tall (6ft 10ins in English money), so - any volunteers to tell him?

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Spike Milligan

Former policeman too if I remember OF, so could beat the ****** out of you and swear you started it..........only joking Mr Bayfield !

I did do a post about a million years ago about why nearly all commentators are ex-players sometimes good/sometimes bad but a large portion are only there because of past glories rather than any journalistic talent. It must drive trainee journos up the wall thinking the likes of bayfield are keeping them out of job.

But is wasnt a great post. Bit like this one really

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Nothing says "Obey Me" like a bloody head on a fence post!

And most of them were very good at running / football etc, but are no good with a microphone in hand. Cricket and tennis have offered some decent ex-pros turned commentators, but other sports fare pretty badly, and football really is dire. I hate to think how much money Andy Gray is paid to spout self-important drivel week in week out. On a plus note, Jamie Redknapp and Ray Wilkins privided spot-on punditry for Fulham v Chelsea. Redknapp is intelligent, thoughtful and can use more than 5 stock sentences. In 5 years time though, they'll probably have indoctrinated him into the football pundits' mindless mantra.

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Just what is going off out there?