How they saw it in .... Belgium

The man from Belgium's RTBF was clearly mystified. How could it be that the BBC was not carrying a bit of the live action from Dublin when their own man, Chris Boardman, was stealing the honours?

The Belgian had clearly never heard of cricket. That was Saturday. By yesterday, Boardman's sad departure from the race had got him on to the BBC.

There was certainly no danger, however, of Belgian, Dutch, German or French viewers missing out on les evenements d' Eu'Connelle Shtreet or of the Col du Wicklow Gap. And, glimpsed in between the ubiquitous CocaCola and Fiat advertising posters, it was even possible to see some of the Fair City.

Live coverage of the tour on Saturday and Sunday occupied at least seven of Brussels TV's 30 channels in three languages for several hours. But surfing was to little avail - the TV feed was the same for all. Only the commentary differed.

Yesterday, Dutch Eurosport was rerunning Sunday's stage ahead of its coverage of the second stage and four other channels were also running the race live.

And although the Belgian and Dutch channels did not engage in the cultural extravaganza of some of their French counterparts, there was time for some marvelling at the scenery, the ambiance superbe, and local history of sorts - as the camera panned across Trinity College we were told that Swift and Oscar Wilde had studied there and that the university had in the last few years admitted Catholics for the first time.

Apart from the city, there was the Festina doping scandal and Belgian delight at the first time appearance on the tour of Axel Merckx in the Polti team - his father, Eddie, is a five times winner.

Then there was Doondroome, the ville natale de Stephen Roche, and the "first sighting of blue sky since we arrived" at precisely 4.09 (Brussels time) on Sunday afternoon as the cyclists swept back through Blessington towards the capital.