Broadcast blues Peek behind the cameras as ITV team gear up to give their bittersweet final Tour

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.

- Luke McLaughlin

Once Gary Imlach and his 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.

Just as British and Irish interest in the race has cycled through eras - from Sean Kelly to David Millar, to Chris Boardman and later Mark Cavendish, to Team Sky of Wiggins, Froome and Thomas - the on-air cast has naturally evolved. Nick Owen and Richard Keys first presented the highlights: Owen in '86, Keys in '87 and '88. Phil Liggett, for a time, doubled as presenter and commentator, and Liggett and Paul Sherwen were succeeded by the more cerebral - and no less popular - Ned Boulting and Millar on commentary.

In an increasingly fragmented industry, though, Imlach is established as the face of cycling on terrestrial TV, blending journalistic rigour with a drily humorous style, a long way from the banterverse of much contemporary sports coverage. As he nears the finish of his own Grand Tour, it seems apposite to ask the question put to countless out-of-breath stage winners down the years: How does he feel?

"There's a mix of emotions," Imlach says. "Sad it's ending but grateful because you can't complain after a 35-year run from what I thought was a freelance job. There's also a determination: we can't let the fact it's our last Tour get in the way of doing a good job. Inevitably, I've also been thinking about people who are no longer here like [director] Steve Docherty, who shaped the show for so long."