1. Between 1985 and 2005, Steve Rider presented a variety of BBC Sport programmes including Sportsnight, Rally Report and the flagship show Grandstand.
42 Facts About Steve Rider
1. 2.
Steve Rider was the anchorman of ITV's football coverage between 2006 and April 2010, and anchored ITV's Formula One coverage from 2006 to 2008.
3.
Steve Rider was the lead presenter for ITV's coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
4.
Steve Rider has been ITV's main presenter for the British Touring Car Championship since 2009.
5.
Steve Rider began his career working for a newspaper in south-east London, the South East London Mercury, followed by writing for sports news agency Hayters.
6.
Steve Rider got his big break reporting from the 1980 Summer Olympics for ITV, after the regional companies could not decide who of their senior reporters should to go to Moscow.
7.
Steve Rider worked for both ITV Sport and ITN for several years providing reports for, and occasionally anchoring, the World of Sport programme and presenting for ITV's coverage of the 1982 World Cup.
8.
Steve Rider was a presenter for some of the golf coverage on Channel 4 and presented some live European football for ITV.
9.
Steve Rider read the sports news section in ITN's Saturday late bulletins.
10.
Steve Rider joined BBC Sport in July 1985, and his first role was to replace Harry Carpenter on the network's Sportsnight programme, which he presented for six years.
11.
Steve Rider co-presented BBC Sports Personality of the Year and anchored most of the BBC's motorsports, rugby and golf coverage.
12.
Steve Rider was anchoring BBC's Formula 1 coverage when Ayrton Senna lost his life at Imola, where he described Senna's condition just after the accident as grave.
13.
Steve Rider anchored the channel's coverage of the University Boat Race until 2005, and every Olympic Games between 1988 and 2004.
14.
Steve Rider was succeeded by Gary Lineker and Hazel Irvine in golf, John Inverdale for the rowing and rugby union and Clare Balding for rugby league.
15.
In 2006 Steve Rider said of the rumoured cancellation of Grandstand:.
16.
Steve Rider was critical of the BBC's selection of Gary Lineker to present golf:.
17.
Steve Rider later said that a factor in his decision to move network was the BBC's unwillingness to agree his long-term future.
18.
In March 2006 Steve Rider made his coverage debut on ITV, appearing on a Formula One preview show for the new season.
19.
Steve Rider started to present coverage of the British Touring Car Championship in 2009, which he continues to do so.
20.
Steve Rider's last presenting role as the football anchor on ITV was the 2010 Champions League semi-final between Lyon and Bayern Munich.
21.
In December 2011, it was announced that Steve Rider had joined Sky Sports to present F1 Legends for Sky Sports F1; the channel debuted in March 2012.
22.
Steve Rider further released his 2006 book Europe at the Masters, which was an insight into European success at the Major event.
23.
Steve Rider set up Racing Past Media, and in 2022 agreed a deal with ITV to organise and make available significant volume of F1 coverage from the first 30 years of the sport.
24.
Steve Rider was the main host of the Autosport Awards for 28 years, finally stepping down in 1997.
25.
Punch magazine said of Rider on Grandstand in 1985: Young Steve Rider is as scrubbed and gleaming as a Colgate ad.
26.
At the 2006 Royal Television Society Television Sports Awards, Grandstand won the Judges Awards with Steve Rider called Mr Calm.
27.
In 2007, The Telegraph said Steve Rider's presenting style had the unflustered air of a man opening his morning paper.
28.
However Steve Rider has been criticised by others, with Charlie Brooker calling him "the blandest of the lot".
29.
Steve Rider said his biggest blooper was at the 1988 Olympics where he said,.
30.
Steve Rider has twice won the Royal Television Society's 'Sports Presenter of the Year' award, in 1994 and 1996, as well as being nominated on numerous occasions.
31.
Steve Rider won a BAFTA TV award for ITVs coverage of the 2008 F1 Brazilian Grand Prix.
32.
Steve Rider's hair has been a point of amusement and ridicule over the years from The Times and the New Spectator, who questioned if it was a toupee.
33.
Steve Rider had objected to the building of affordable housing within East Portlemouth, where property prices had soared due to wealthy second home owners, leaving local people unable to afford to live within their own communities.
34.
In October 1985, Steve Rider navigated for Pentti Airikkala at the final round of the Audi Sport National Rally, where they finished top of Class 4 in an Vauxhall Astra GTE.
35.
Steve Rider had previously navigated for Harry Hockley in a Vauxhall Nova in the previous years rally.
36.
In October 2023, Steve Rider revealed on BBC Breakfast that he was receiving treatment for prostate cancer.
37.
In January 2025, Steve Rider revealed that he had only been tested after a friend had been diagnosed.
38.
Steve Rider is patron of the South Buckinghamshire charity Headway South Bucks, which raises money for people with head injuries, and of children's cancer charity CLIC Sargent.
39.
Steve Rider is Vice-President of United Response, a national charity that supports people with learning disabilities, physical and mental health needs.
40.
Steve Rider has become the patron of Children and Families Across Borders, a charity dedicated to reuniting children who have been separated from their families.
41.
Since 2008 Steve Rider has been the patron of Exeter Leukaemia Fund.
42.
Steve Rider has run the London Marathon on numerous occasions for charity, including Action Research and the Seve Ballesteros Foundation.