I was thoroughly knocked by this when I heard the news yesterday morning. Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett had been the voices of Tour de France coverage from the very first time it got properly covered back in the eighties. At the time it was a UK-only thing, but in due course they were the main voices for the English speaking world including the US, Australia and South Africa.
While I've been critical in the past here about them perhaps continuing on a little too long, and the UK now has its own commentary team (as does Australia I believe), they were still much loved. Paul and Phil were still heard in the UK on feeds of some other international races like the Tour Down Under or Tour of California. Earlier this year I rode a sportive cycle event at which Phil saw us away on the start line. He had been due to ride himself, but illness prevented it (it was a grey wet day. I got soaked to the skin. It was probably a smart move not to ride). However the event was in part to raise money for Helping Rhinos, a charity that does conservation work in Uganda, and that both he and Paul Sherwen supported. So Phil, who lives nearby, was standing there on the line in a Helping Rhinos t-shirt seeing us all off. Paul always came across as just a thoroughly nice man, and it's been lovely reading some of the kind words people have posted on social media and cycling websites. His voice will be sorely missed. Adam On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 2:13 PM 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV < [email protected]> wrote: > > The younger (by 10+ yrs) of that iconic duo with Phil Liggett... ISTR > reading he'd cut back on other events in recent years due to health issues, > but still continued to do TdFs and Olympics. > > B > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
