Earlier this year, track cycling television gave us two different reasons to complain.
After the European Championships in Konya, we argued that too many of the sport's most important performances were happening off air. World records were being reduced to results and social media clips because qualifying sessions were not considered part of the television product.
Hong Kong then exposed a different problem. The cameras were present, but the coverage still failed to recognise some of the racing that mattered. Important incidents and tournament-defining performances became clearer through riders' phones than through the official broadcast.
Glasgow 2026 provided something more useful: an example worth following.
Every one of Glasgow's eight track and para-track sessions was available live through HBO Max. The commentary developed across the competition rather than being rebuilt each evening. Riders were interviewed inside track centre while performances were still fresh. Explanation remained part of the coverage, but it did not overwhelm the racing.
The result was not simply more track cycling on television. It was a much better account of the sport.
The whole competition was visible
The most important improvement was also the most obvious.
Qualifying was not reduced to a timing sheet. Early tournament rounds did not disappear. Viewers were not asked to arrive halfway through the story and reconstruct what had happened earlier.
This formed part of a commitment to more than 600 hours of Commonwealth Games coverage, with every event available live through HBO Max. On the track, it meant that all eight sessions across the four-day programme were treated as part of the broadcast rather than only those considered suitable for an evening audience.
That continuity matters because track cycling is built around tournaments.
A sprint final carries more meaning when the audience has seen how each rider qualified, what happened in the earlier rounds and how much effort was required to reach it. Team pursuit becomes more compelling as the benchmark times and seedings develop. Bunch races acquire context as the riders, teams and tactical relationships become familiar.
Morning sessions are sometimes treated as though they contain only the administrative stages of a competition. Glasgow showed the opposite. They establish the order of the event, reveal form and give the later medal races much of their meaning.
Complete coverage also allowed para-track to belong to the same continuous sporting narrative. Para events were not occasional inserts within somebody else's programme. They occupied the same sessions, received the same live commentary and were treated with the same assumption of sporting importance.
Classification and event-specific details still needed to be explained, but the athletes were presented first as competitors. Their performances were allowed to create their own significance rather than being introduced primarily through educational or inspirational framing.
Not every minute of a full session will produce a medal or a major incident. It does not need to. A competition should be allowed to develop rather than being compressed into a collection of supposedly important moments selected in advance.
Showing more made the sport easier to understand
Track cycling is often described as difficult for a general audience to follow. Television's usual response is to remove detail from the competition and compensate with more explanation.
That can create its own problem.
When qualifying and early rounds are removed, viewers are dropped into races without knowing how the riders reached them, what has already happened or why a particular result matters. The coverage then requires additional educational segments to explain the competition whose natural context it has taken away.
Glasgow largely avoided that cycle.
A viewer did not need a separate package to understand why a rider had changed tactics between sprint rides because both races had been shown. The significance of a team pursuit time was clearer because the previous teams and their times formed part of the same broadcast. The structure of an elimination race became familiar through watching it unfold, supported by commentary when explanation was useful.
The racing provided much of the education.
That does not mean coverage should assume everybody already understands track cycling. New viewers still need rules, tactics, classifications and technical details explained. The difference is whether that explanation supports the event or repeatedly interrupts it.
Glasgow trusted viewers to learn through the competition. It did not keep stopping the sport to introduce it again.
Commentary became a conversation
The regular use of three voices in the commentary box also made a considerable difference.
One commentator can describe a race. Across several hours, however, that same person may also be expected to explain regulations, interpret tactics, introduce riders, recall performances from earlier sessions and fill every pause in the programme. Even a knowledgeable commentator can eventually be pushed towards a monologue.
Glasgow felt different because the commentary could operate as a conversation.
There was space for one voice to carry the immediate action while others added tactical interpretation, athlete knowledge and connections to what had happened earlier. Questions could be asked naturally. Different readings of a race could be explored. Technical details could emerge through discussion rather than being delivered as a lecture.
The team included Rob Hatch and Lewis Stewart, with Joanna Rowsell. The value was not simply in assembling recognisable names. It was in having enough informed voices to perform different roles.
More commentators do not automatically produce better television. A crowded commentary box can easily become several people waiting for an opportunity to speak. At Glasgow, the contributions were distinct enough to give the coverage greater depth rather than greater noise.
Most importantly, the commentary developed a memory. A performance from an earlier session could be recalled when it became relevant several rounds later. That is particularly important in track cycling, where the meaning of a final often lies in something that happened hours, or even days, before it.
Track centre became part of the programme
Ade Adepitan and Adam Blythe's reporting and interviews from inside track centre alongside Sir Chris Hoy, Dame Sarah Storey and Dame Laura Kenny were another particularly strong part of the coverage.
The gaps between races are often where track broadcasts lose confidence. Cameras search for generic crowd shots, return to basic explanatory packages or simply wait for the next start.
Glasgow used those periods to speak to the riders.
Because the interviews took place immediately after performances, they remained connected to what the audience had just watched. Riders could explain tactical decisions, respond to an unexpected result or describe how a performance had felt before it was reduced to a polished post-event answer.
The interviews were usually brief, which helped. They did not attempt to turn every rider into a prepared human-interest feature. Personality emerged naturally through how someone responded to winning, losing, making a mistake or producing a performance they had not expected.
Track centre is also part of the visual character of the sport. Riders warm up and recover within metres of one another. Coaches review performances, mechanics prepare equipment and teams make decisions that will affect the next round.
Taking the broadcast into that environment made the programme feel connected to the competition rather than placed on top of it.
The standard other events should follow
Production quality and public reach are not the same thing.
The complete live service remained principally a subscription product through HBO Max, while the free-to-air offering was built around daily highlights on 5. Glasgow therefore did not resolve every question about how track cycling reaches the largest possible audience.
It did, however, demonstrate what comprehensive coverage of the sport can look like. After repeated examples of subscribers paying for partial championship coverage, Glasgow delivered the premium product those viewers should reasonably expect.
Not every UCI event will have the production resources of a Commonwealth Games, but the basic standard should no longer be difficult to define.
Every session should be available live. Qualifying and early rounds should not disappear because they fall outside the main television window. At major championships, informed multi-voice commentary and access to riders inside track centre should then turn that complete stream into a properly developed broadcast.
Glasgow did not make track cycling easier to watch by reducing it.
It showed every session, allowed informed voices to build the story and brought the audience into track centre as that story developed. It explained the sport without allowing explanation to become the programme.
The coverage respected established supporters without excluding new viewers. It also gave riders, teams and events the continuous visibility that track cycling too often denies itself.
The sport did not need to be repackaged, shortened or repeatedly introduced.
It simply needed to be properly shown.
