Paul Sherwen
Cyclist who became one half of a popular commentary double act
PAUL SHERWEN, who has died of heart failure aged 62, was a cyclist whose career included two outstanding demonstrations of courage in the Tour de France. He went on to become a commentator for Channel 4 who did much with his partner at the microphone, Phil Liggett, to kick-start the sport in Britain, inspiring up-andcoming athletes to take to two wheels and building up a legion of anglophone cycling fans.
In the 1980 Tour, Sherwen suffered a bad crash on the third stage, and undertook a long solo chase to get back to the main field. He crossed the line outside the cut-off time, which should have meant automatic elimination, but the organisers reinstated him in recognition of his bravery.
It was a similar story five years later: Sherwen crashed in the opening kilometre of the first mountain stage. The mighty Bernard Hinault, who would go on to win his fifth Tour that year, was setting a furious pace at the front, and again Sherwen’s race seemed to be finishing early.
Instead he embarked on a heroic six-hour slog through the punishing mountains, with only a motorcycle outrider for company. Again, he was rewarded for his raw-boned courage, and though he finished more than an hour behind the winner he was reinstated, and was able to finish his seventh and final Tour in Paris.
Paul Sherwen was born at Widnes, Lancashire, on June 7 1956. He was brought up in Kenya, and he first excelled in swimming, finishing runner-up in the under-14 championships there.
The family returned to Britain when Paul was in his teens, and he won the under-18 regional swimming title in Cheshire. But he switched to cycling and was taken under the wing of Harold “H” Nelson, who coached several internationals during a long career.
Sherwen won a clutch of titles, initially for the Weaver Valley club and then for the Altrincham road club, including the Londonfolkestone race, in which he attacked from the start, before trying his hand across the Channel.
In 1978, after graduating from Umist (the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), he turned professional, riding for the Fiat team and later for La Redoute. As a domestique, whose job is to serve and support the team leader, Sherwen was never in line to contest the grand Tours, but he had respectable placings in gruelling one-day events like the Milan-san Remo and the Paris-roubaix. He described himself as “a pathetic climber but a reasonable sprinter”.
On the 1984 Tour de France he was riding with the Australian cyclist Allan Peiper when Peiper was knocked off by a fan. Though Sherwen himself was once more facing elimination, he told Peiper to get back on his bike and shepherded him to the finish, making the time cut by a tiny margin.
After his final Tour in 1985 Sherwen joined Raleigh and won two national titles before retiring. He worked as a press officer for Motorola in the early 1990s, and by then was already established with Phil Liggett as a commentary double act. In 2017 the Wall Street Journal wrote: “Liggett and Sherwen are an institution. For many, the mellifluous melody and harmony of Paul and Phil is the soundtrack of cycling.”
Liggett and Sherwen later moved to NBC Sports in the US, where they continued to deliver their relaxed, unfussy commentaries; Geraint Thomas’s victory in July was the 33rd Tour de France Sherwen had worked on.
He also covered five Olympic Games for NBC, and in later years he had business interests in Uganda, where he lived, in the mining, oil and gas industries. He served as chairman of the Uganda Chamber of Mines.
Paul Sherwen married Katherine Love, whom he met when she was working for ABC Sports during the 1989 Tour de France. She survives him along with a son and a daughter.
Paul Sherwen, born June 7 1956, died December 2 2018