Update: BBC and ITV Sport legend makes retirement decision from TV screens after 50-year career News

Steve Rider, 74, is one of the most recognisable faces in the history of British sports broadcasting, having anchored the BBC’s coverage of numerous Olympic Games

Esteemed sports broadcaster Steve Rider has announced his intention to “sidle away” from television this summer, drawing the curtain on a remarkable career that has spanned almost half a century.

The 74-year-old is perhaps best known for his role as host of the iconic BBC sports programme Grandstand, where he covered an array of sports including rugby, golf, rowing and motorsports. He also fronted Sportsnight and Sports Personality of the Year, and was the lead presenter for the corporation’s coverage of every Olympic Games from 1988 to 2004.

In 2005, Rider departed the BBC and returned to ITV, where he had first made his mark 25 years earlier. Since then, he has remained with the network, presenting coverage of Formula One and World Cups in both rugby and football, as well as hosting the British Touring Car Championship for the past 16 years.

It is in this capacity that he will bring his 48-year broadcasting career to a close this summer. The legendary presenter expects a quiet departure when his final stint in front of the camera arrives in June.

“I’ll just sidle away,'” Rider – who celebrates his 75th birthday this month – shared with the Daily Mail. “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!”, reports the Mirror.

“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 television screens comes 18 months after he revealed his prostate cancer diagnosis. Speaking on BBC Breakfast, the presenter disclosed that he had been “incredibly lucky” to have the condition caught early and had promptly undergone “significant” surgery to prevent further spread.

After a friend was diagnosed with the same type of cancer following a medical check-up, Rider’s wife pushed him to get additional tests when his initial results returned “a little high”.

“I was cutting it a bit fine,” Rider confessed. “They took one look and said, ‘We’re going to operate in two weeks’. No messing about. We did Brands Hatch for ITV on the Sunday and I had the operation on the Thursday, so it slotted 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 continued, emphasizing the importance of getting tested 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.”