World-renowned sports scientist Professor Ross Tucker and veteran sports journalist Mike Finch break down the myths, practices and controversies from the world of sport. From athletics to rugby, soccer, cycling and more, the two delve into the most recent research, unearth lessons from the pros and host exclusive interviews with some of the world’s leading sporting experts. For those who love sport.
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Show notes
This week our headline topic is a „concussion sensor“ being trialled by some teams at the Tour de France, and why it is a welcome innovation, but one that, for now, invites potentially dangerous false hope. We also take a spin through the rest of the week in sport, covering football, cycling, tennis and track and field. Oh, and hotdogs.
- (00:00:20) The World Cup nears its finale, and Spain utterly outplayed France to reach the final, making fools of our predictions after Gareth handed France to Ross. We get into why the France-Spain dynamic flipped so completely, the scarcity of penalty shootouts this tournament, the mooted expansion to 64 teams, hydration-break ad money paying for the broadcast rights, the ref cam, and the goal-line technology row over the England-Norway „wire“ incident.
- (00:16:18) Following our David Bailey podcast, we ask whether the peloton is simply scared of Tadej Pogačar, whose dominance at the Tour has riders like Ben Healy and Florian Lipowitz shaking their heads in bewilderment. We also unpack why „marginal gains“ and sports science only ever matter as a point of difference, borrowing points-of-parity and points-of-difference thinking from marketing.
- (00:24:16) Our headline piece. A „concussion“ sensor sitting behind the helmet’s BOA dial is being trialled by some teams the Tour, and we explain why the name is a dangerous misnomer. A helmet-mounted device measures helmet acceleration, not the brain, may be triggered off by cobbles, and can never be diagnostic. We explain that it could be used as a triage tool, not a diagnostic one that replaces road-side assessments. Drawing on rugby’s mouthguard data, hundreds of thousands of head-acceleration events with poor sensitivity and predictive value, and the case of Torstein Traen, who passed a roadside check yet was later diagnosed with concussion, Ross explains that this is a genuine safety opportunity, but only if cycling gets the framing and the use of it right.
- (00:40:06) A wrap of the Wimbledon finals, with remarkable mental resilience from the new women’s champion Linda Noskova, and Jannik Sinner’s dominant serve. We look at Sinner’s serve speed and placement, and how Zverev manages type 1 diabetes on court.
- (00:45:53) A rush of track action from the Monaco Diamond League, including Emmanuel Wanyonyi’s 1000m world record and a brave but doomed attempt at the 3000m WR by Birke Haylom, who paid for what ended up being a pacing error by coming last. We also look ahead to the London Diamond League, headlined by Josh Kerr’s much-hyped mile world record attempt, the women’s 800m with Hodgkinson and Bol, and a stacked men’s 800m.
- (00:57:50) Does South African rugby have a doping problem? A new positive for junior Springbok prop Kai Pratt, SAIDS rejecting the „witch hunt“ framing, and Ross digs into the numbers: testing down more than six-fold in a decade, South Africa accounting for one in five rugby doping cases worldwide, and an anti-doping body whose budget has flatlined. We argue why „sour grapes“ is no defence, and why the answer is to test more, not deflect.
- (01:04:57) And Finally, Joey Chestnut wins another July 4th hot dog title, with the Kobayashi method as competitive eating’s „super shoes“, and an Ironman in Swansea sends us down the rabbit hole of how organisers conjure those economic-impact and „media value“ figures, plus the leader who rode straight into a stationary ambulance.
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