1 week Ago By [email protected] (John Jones)
Legendary sports broadcaster Steve Rider says he plans to "sidle away" from TV this summer after nearly 50 years on screen. The 74-year-old is probably best known for presenting iconic BBC sports show Grandstand and covered a variety of sports during his time with the broadcaster, from rugby and golf to rowing and motorsports. He also presented Sportsnight and Sports Personality of the Year, while he anchored the corporation's coverage of every Olympic Games between 1988 and 2004.
However, Rider left the BBC in 2005 and returned to ITV , where he had got his big break 25 years earlier. Having initially presented coverage of Formula One and World Cups in both rugby and football, he has remained at the broadcaster ever since, hosting the British Touring Car Championship for the last 16 years. It is in that role that he will bring the curtain down on his 48-year broadcasting career this summer, with the legendary presenter expecting a low-key exit when his final job in front of the camera comes around in June.
"I’ll just sidle away,’" Rider - who turns 75 this month - told MailOnline. "The biggest emotion as you get into the last two minutes of something like that is, 'For God’s sake, don’t c**k it up,' because you’d be thinking about that for the next 20 years! "I've probably outstayed my welcome. I’ve been hugely lucky with the places that the career has taken me.
But it’s close to 50 years now, so the cracks are showing!" Rider's departure from our screens comes 18 months after he revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. The presenter announced the news on BBC Breakfast, explaining that he had been "incredibly lucky" as the disease was caught early and he promptly underwent "significant" surgery to prevent it from spreading. He had gone to get himself tested after one of his friends was diagnosed with the same cancer following a medical check, with his wife urging him to undergo further examinations after his readings came back "a little high" following his first check-up.
"I was cutting it a bit fine," Rider explained. "They took one look and said, 'We’re going to operate in two weeks'. No mucking about.
We did Brands Hatch for ITV on the Sunday and I had the operation on the Thursday, so it fitted into the schedule quite nicely! ‘It was one operation, whip it all out, off you go and enjoy the rest of your life, second chance. But I was one of the lucky ones," he added, as he urged people to undergo checks for the disease. "Get yourself tested because once this wretched thing develops, as we’ve been seeing from Chris Hoy and Eddie Jordan, it just gallops away and there’s no control.
The chance you have is early testing.".
