When the last rider rolls across the Tour de France finish line in Paris on 27 July it will mark more than the end of the world’s most prestigious bike race. Once Gary Imlach and team have wrapped up, it will conclude four decades of free-to-air Tour coverage for British TV viewers.
While the sport, and the technology used to broadcast it, have transformed since the 1980s, the excellence of the ITV programme (previously on Channel 4) has been constant.
