BBC Olympics coverage interrupted as Hazel Irvine cut off conversation | Other | Sport
BBC host Hazel Irvine paused the broadcaster’s coverage of the Olympics when she spotted two Parisian workers behind them, fixing the Beeb’s studio while live on air.
Irvine was discussing Team GB’s first medal win of the summer when the pundits were ambushed by two men, seemingly unaware of the situation they found themselves in.
“Those medals have been a long time in the making, Great Britain’s first-ever diving medal was in 1912, it was won by a woman,” she said, before spotting the two men behind her.
“And in 1960 Liz Ferris… I think we might have a bit of an interloper here… Can you see this behind me? Because we have got two gentlemen here fixing our studio just behind me – hi guys! Bonjour!
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“I don’t think they have a clue, I don’t think they realise they are on the telly at the moment… but it has been a fantastic start hasn’t it? A day one bronze for Great Britain.”
The two men continued to work in the background before coverage then cut away to live action of the women’s road cycling time trial, after Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen were praised for their bronze win in unlikely circumstances.
The women’s synchronised 3m springboard saw the likely medalists Australia make a catastrophic blunder in the final dive. Anabelle Smith accidentally leapt onto the side of her board and a shellshocked crowd could not believe they had failed to deliver 58 necessary points for a podium place, opening the door for Team GB.
Smith was in tears as she emerged from the water, consoled by her coach and team-mate, before Harper and Mew Jensen held their nerves to claim an unlikely medal.
They had secured Great Britain’s first female diving medal in 64 years and the team’s first opening-day medal in any sport since the 2004 Games in Athens.
And Irvine alongside Tonia Couch, after being interrupted during their broadcast, returned to praising the first two British medalists at this summer’s games.
“Their spirits must be so high right now,” Couch said. “Can you imagine when they go back to the village, showing their medal, they are going to be like ‘that’s what I won’, so they are going to be buzzing and excited.”
