The Real Science of Sport Podcast

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Show notes

This week, Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir is provisionally suspended for EPO, and we ask what Kenya’s doping problem means for trust in marathon running, before previewing Andreas Almgren’s New York debut:

(00:00:56) Peres Jepchirchir, perhaps the most decorated marathon athlete ever caught doping, tested positive for EPO out of competition in July, a month before winning Sydney. We discuss EPO and the biological passport, why Kenyan doping looks so rudimentary, and her agent's reaction
(00:09:47) Should Kenya lose the 2029 World Championships, or be banned outright? Ross explains why punishing the federation flips the incentive and will just cause the problem to be ignored and hidden. Gareth finds that India and Italy have more violations in WADA’s figures, and we look at a 2027 WADA Code rule that triggers automatic investigation of support personnel
(00:33:49) The 2027 Tour de France route, with two time trials and the mountains pushed late, is being called “anti-Pogačar”. Ross does the per-kilometer arithmetic on Remco Evenepoel's TT gains, and reckons it only delays the inevitable
(00:45:07) Andreas Almgren makes his marathon debut in New York. Why pace calculators can’t account for a course with only 22 times under the top 1000 threshold, why heat training may suit him better than altitude, and whether he can end a run of 54 straight Major wins by African-born runners
(00:59:32) And finally, the most extraordinary marathon career in history, Yuki Kawauchi’s 118 marathons (with a PB in his 97th). Plus, a drone stops an Arsenal match, and can anybody really pedal across the English Channel at 400 watts?
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Show notes

This week, lactate gels go on sale with Tadej Pogačar’s name in the promotions, and we test the claim that lactate is a “third fuel source”, before revisiting carbs and the Kona collapses:

(00:00:19) The lactate gel UAE Team Emirates used at the Tour de France is now on sale. We look at the marketing, ask whether 10 grams of lactate can beat 10 more grams of carbs, and go through the studies, which so far suggest stomach problems, unchanged blood lactate levels, and dubious performance benefits. Ross is skeptical, though open to a brain/signalling role, or a buffering effect
(00:27:06) What Taylor Knibb got right at Kona (patient pacing, and a walk through an aid station), what Kristian Blummenfelt would change, and why Lucy Charles-Barclay “still doesn’t know what happened”
(00:35:41) Tim Noakes now has a “novel” brain mechanism for why 120 grams of carbs an hour works. Is it a U-turn? And is it novel?
(00:43:19) Road sprinter Jonathan Milan becomes the first man under 3:59 in the individual pursuit at the Track World Championships
(00:51:13) A survey calls British Cycling’s culture “toxic”, and the judge in the Larry Nassar trial says sport has barely changed. Why is safeguarding so hard to implement in elite sports environments?
(01:03:45) World Rugby cracks down on hip drop and knee drop tackles, and Ross explains the evidence that informed the decision, from 13,000 coded tackles
(01:13:31) Canada beat England, ending their unbeaten run in women’s rugby
(01:16:55) And finally, a boxing referee ignores the towel (twice), and Lamine Yamal has played 8,200 minutes of football by the age of 18.
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SHOW NOTES
From the evidence on early specialisation to the formula most likely to produce a champion sportsperson, talent specialist Stuart Armstrong breaks down the science and data on identifying and developing young talent. For parents everywhere with a child showing sporting promise, Armstrong offers practical advice on how to sustain motivation and decide whether to pursue a pro sporting career or foster a lifelong love of sport. Armstrong also breaks down the path most likely to produce a champion, and it's not what you think. Armstrong is the managing director at Future Coach, a Learning Innovation Architect, Skill Acquisition Specialist and host of the Talent Equation Podcast and has spent most of his career working in the talent ID field, having previously worked for Sport England.

Members are invited to submit questions for a follow-up Members podcast with Armstrong via our Discourse channel. Become a Supporter here for ad-free shows, a members-only Applied show every week and regular discussions on our Discourse channel.

Links

Stuart's Future Coach website, his new venture.

Some of the studies related to the concept of early specialisation, as discussed on the show:
A systematic review of professional, elite and Olympic athletes. Those who delayed specialising had fewer injuries and, in most sports, performed better.
A systematic review of team sports that found early specialisation is linked to more injuries and more young players quitting. Playing a variety of sports helps them develop.
A study of 67,600 track and field athletes. Only about a quarter of the top-100 U18s made the senior top 100, and 68.5% of top-100 seniors had never been in the top 100 as juniors.
The study of nearly 6,000 Italian sprinters, hurdlers and throwers. The best reached their peak later, around 23–25, and only about 1 in 5 had been top level at 14–17.
A paper showing how inconsistently “early specialisation” is defined. Only 21% of 129 papers used the full four-part definition, which makes it hard to say what the harm actually is.
This study of Spanish sprinters found that only 3.8% of the top-20 U14s went on to reach the senior elite.
A review on junior tennis concludes that early specialisation raises injury risk and burnout without making it more likely a player reaches the elite. It recommends not specialising before age 12.
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Show notes

This week, why Solveig Løvseth and Magnus Ditlev collapsed in the heat at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, whether sports science innovation plays a part, and a Chicago Marathon that was faster than it felt:

(00:01:52) Amos Kipruto and Hawi Feysa win Chicago in the fifth-fastest times in history, though with no splits on screen we were left guessing. Jacob Kiplimo’s hamstring leaves him off a road podium for the first time in 27 races, and treadmill-trained Vincent Mauri made a bid for the US record but also fell foul of hamstring issues
(00:07:40) Ross analyses the top 100 marathoners in history. How many races did it take them to run their best time, and what does a suspicious late PB look like?
(00:23:02) Paul Seixas wins Il Lombardia, after riders delay the start to protest vehicles on the course. Gareth wants more from the riders, for their own benefit
(00:34:05) Solveig Løvseth collapses within reach of a second Kona title, and Ditlev drops out while leading. Her manager blamed nutrition and salt, while she doesn't know what went wrong. We think heat is the likeliest suspect, and that these athletes are highly unlikely to be under fuelling. We ask whether carbs and super shoes have have raised every limit except body temperature, and allowed athletes to crash into it more often? Should races monitor core temperature, and pull staggering/falling athletes out?
(00:54:16) Two new carb studies (150 vs 120 vs 10 grams an hour, and 100 beats 60 for improved durability), and how much you really need
(01:00:02) Pieter Coetze breaks the 50m backstroke world record. Is he South Africa’s likeliest gold medallist in LA?
(01:02:29) And finally, Rwanda will host Africa’s first Grand Prix since 1993, and a FIFPro report shows Luka Modrić played 76 matches in a season, and Moisés Caicedo flew 25,000km for four matches in 14 days.

Other links:
One of the many famous Ironman "collapses" - the crawl with Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham, this was for 4th/5th in 1997
In 1982, perhaps the first, and the one that helped create the aura around Ironman, featured Julie Moss losing the race with 50m to run
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Show notes

This week, the UCI's Future of Cycling report, why people believed Tigst Assefa when they doubted Ruth Chepngetich, and whether athletes are asked to take on too much load and risk of harm:

(00:02:11) The UCI proposes 16-day Grand Tours from 2029, teams of seven or six riders, shared media money, budget caps, and GPS tracking of riders and cars. Ross backs most of it, but asks how any sporting governing body knows what its sport really needs when the loudest voices may not be in the majority
(00:17:20) Remco Evenepoel beats Giulio Ciccone to the European title by under three-thousandths of a second, and we explore how a photo finish works
(00:25:23) Can Jacob Kiplimo break the marathon world record in Chicago this weekend?
(00:28:19) Had Assefa broken Chepngetich's record in Berlin, would we have believed her? We compare their career trajectories, the confounding effect of prototype super shoes, and tease a new paper that Ross is involved in, suggesting women benefit more from the shoes than men
(00:41:19) Emma Navarro ends her season after almost three years of under-fuelling and RED-S. How did her team miss it, and what should "normal" feel like?
(00:48:44) Player unions take FIFA to court over fixture congestion. Ross plays devil's advocate, since clubs carry most of the load, nobody has defined how many matches is too many, and nobody really considers the other side of the impact of players being classified as workers
(01:02:01) Jannik Sinner's season is over, and no semi-final or final was completed at the China Open. Is tennis limping to its year end, and what evidence is needed to fix it?
(01:03:31) And finally, Stuart Phillips dismantles a hyped creatine study, and we pick the 2036 Olympic host on tourism grounds alone (Kirsty Coventry, please consider South Africa!)
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