The Real Science of Sport Podcast

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Show notes

Josh Kerr, the Commonwealth Games, a stitch explained, the Tour de France Femmes, and yet another South African schoolboy rugby doping ban. In today's show:

(00:00:38) We joked before Glasgow that this might be the last Commonwealth Games we ever see, and we were wrong. They survived in a cut-down, ten sport form, with India in 2030 and interest from Nigeria and New Zealand for 2034. We debate whether a smaller, cheaper games is actually the point rather than the problem, and what it means that the BBC's sub-one-million-pound bid was rejected, leaving Josh Kerr's mile watched by 200,000 people when Eilish McColgan's 10,000m in 2022 drew six million.
(00:02:37) The performances, including Emmanuel Eseme of Cameroon running 9.83 in apocalyptic rain, three women under 11 seconds, and Josh Kerr's utterly dominant 3:54 mile off a jogged first kilometre. With the fastest mile in history relative to his peers and a devastating kick, how does anyone actually beat him now, and will the 1500m world record follow? Kerr says he is flying a little close to the sun, and we explain why staying in world record shape is like sitting in the death zone on Everest.
(00:24:13) Laura Muir crossed the line 16th and collapsed after a stitch at 3km, so what actually causes one? We go through exercise related transient abdominal pain, the old diaphragmatic ischaemia theory, the newer parietal peritoneum irritation explanation, why shoulder tip pain is referred pain, and the risk factors including drinking before you run, being younger, being female, and having weaker trunk muscles.
(00:33:56) Ingebrigtsen returns at the Euros over 5000m off two disrupted seasons and Achilles surgery, and we're not sure it'll be the comeback people hope for.
(00:44:52) The Tour de France Femmes is brewing into a genuinely great race, with time gaps after the time-trial necessitating attacking racing as the Tour heads into its hilly and mountain stages. Niewiadoma and Ferrand-Prevot in particular need to claw back big time, while Reuser defends and Vollering waits ominously in pole-position. Instead the world's media is writing about padded bras. Why does cycling always shoot itself in the foot, and why is it a headline for the women when it was an incidental for the men?
(00:47:40) Tadej Pogačar's estimated VO2max of over 100 is doing the rounds, using exactly the methods Ross was hammered for using on Contador and Froome fifteen years ago. We explain the modelling, why assumptions can spit out anything between 85 and 101, and what that means for comparing Pogačar to Pantani on Alpe d'Huez.
(00:55:56) The full Markéta Vondroušová decision is out, and it reads very differently to the version that had tennis players outraged. Plus a hard look at South African schools rugby, where Deon Botes is the third schoolboy banned in months, this time for a supplement his father allegedly bought for cash from a stranger outside a pharmacy with "ultimate test booster" on the box.
(01:12:47) Jannik Sinner walks away from a potential clean sweep of the Masters events to play less tennis before the US Open, while Carlos Alcaraz withdraws from Cincinnati and extends a wrist injury layoff that has now cost him May, June, July, and half of August. Two very different answers to the same question, and one that echoes Josh Kerr's approach to racing.
(01:15:00) And finally, an update on Anna's ride around Australia. Nine days, 976km, 7,940m of climbing, one chain change, and three magpie attacks.
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Ross Hemingway, OBE, is a Sport & Exercise Medicine Practitioner at the Commando Training Centre for the Royal Marines. His clinical expertise centres on exertional collapse, in particular the prevention, acute management, and rehabilitation of exertional heat illness (EHI) in elite, amateur, and tactical athletes, and is recognised as a UK national expert in this field. Hemingway is also a member of the UK Heat Illness Advisory Group and a contributing author to the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care’s (FPHC) UK consensus statement on the management of Exertional Heat Illness.
In this interview, Hemingway breaks down the theory of heat illness, how it happens, prevalence, and the best ways of dealing with EHI during exercise.
Alongside his clinical practice, he is also the founder of Nereus Medical Ltd and inventor of the patented I-CWIK, a lightweight, robust and clinically proven system developed to provide effective cold-water immersion of heat stroke casualties in the pre-hospital and hospital environment.

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SHOW NOTES
The EHI Consensus Statement website

The Full EHI Article, of which Ross is lead author

One of the studies Ross alluded to, this one from the World Champs in Doha

Another paper he mentioned, discussing athlete management ahead of the Olympic Games

The baboon model for heatstroke discussed on the show

We published a study years back documenting some heatstrokes in SA endurance events

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Become a Supporter of The Real Science of Sport, and for the price of a coffee, or a gel, you get a bonus Applied episode every week, ad-free shows, and the best cycling and running community going over on Discourse.

Show notes

This week we recap Tadej Pogačar's record-breaking Tour de France, and then get into the meat of it: why anti-doping leans so heavily on investigation and targeted testing, with insights from our interview with Brett Clothier, head of athletics' Athletics Integrity Unit.

(02:24) Tadej Pogačar wins a fifth Tour de France in what Ross reckons is the most dominant display he has seen in any sport, and we dig into the numbers behind it, including an estimated 7 W/kg on Alpe d'Huez that obliterates Pantani's old mark, why the yellow jersey was effectively settled by stage six, and why the racing everywhere else still made it a decent watch.
(13:55) The weight-loss double standard. Remco Evenepoel reportedly dropped around nine pounds for the Tour with barely a murmur, while Pauline Ferrand-Prévot's weight loss dominated the coverage last year. We ask why the reaction differs by sex, and where the line sits between periodised, medically supervised leanness and a genuine eating-disorder risk.
(19:42) That Montmartre finale, with Van der Poel and Pogačar breaking clear on the last climb, van der Poel's heroic's to hold off the chasing pack, and Jasper Philipsen's remarkable judgement to "win" by not winning against his team-mate. Plus, we ponder whether the GC should really be neutralised so early on the final day? We say let them race.
(32:37) The headline this week: why testing alone rarely catches the big fish, and why investigation and targeted testing do. Prompted by the furore over 2am and 5am testing at the Tour, we hear from Brett Clothier of the Athletics Integrity Unit, and explain the biological passport, the micro-dosing of EPO, fast-clearance methods, gene-doping fears, and why a genuinely "transparent" statement about a target test is close to impossible without prejudicing everyone involved.
(46:26) A look ahead to the women's Tour de France, the contenders including Vollering, Blasi, Niewiadoma, Ferrand-Prévot and Reusser. With storylines galore, it features the return of a time trial, and French TV figures showing the women's race is closer to the men's than you might expect.
(51:48) Are the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow still worth watching without the stars? Gareth is won over by the weightlifting, and we ask whether you really need the very best in the world to enjoy sport.
(58:49) The Ultimate Championship, athletics' new 10 million dollar, three-night, TV-first format, complete with a black infield, real-time win probabilities, Mondo Duplantis on stadium DJ duty, and no country quotas. We react, and Ross pitches what he would add to the broadcast
(64:16) Josh Kerr reveals how the pacing lights were slowed over the final 100 metres of his mile record to create the illusion he was beating them. Clever theatre, or are we being deceived?
(67:00) And finally, Discourse member Ana sets off on a 15,000km "big lap" of Australia on her gravel bike. We wish her luck, and start plotting the data she should share with our listener community!

Links

This is the ITA statement during the Tour - it's really all they can say and expecting more is a day dream!
The article on gene doping - speculative and sounds like sci-fi, but might it be happening
The paper on micro-dosing and detection challenges
Plugge on how the tests brought doping back to cycling
Preview of the TDF for Women
Details on the World Athletics Ultimate Championships
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Quick heads up before we start: this is not a brand new episode. If you are one of our Members you will have heard it in full about six weeks ago, when we released it as a Members' only Applied show. But we thought it was too interesting and relevant to stay behind the paywall, so we have cut it down into this shorter version and opened it up to everyone, partly because we want sports science to reach as many people as possible, and partly because it is a taste of exactly what supporters get every week, ad free, alongside our Discourse community! So join now and get it early, ad-free and with post-pod chats!

The show was sparked by Gareth's admission that he paces his Zwift time trials by "trying not to die", which, as Ross points out, is already a sign the pacing has gone wrong. Pacing is not about reacting to fatigue once it arrives, but about managing effort now based on its future consequences. Using the analogy of a budget, we look at the two things it defends against, depletion of fuel like carbohydrate and creatine phosphate, and accumulation of heat, hydrogen ions, and other metabolites, and why good pacing is a skill that has to be learned.

From there we get applied. Why has elite pacing become flatter over the generations, why can you never bank time in a long event when the 400 and 800 metres break that rule, and how should you actually pace a hilly time trial? Drawing on Remco Evenepoel's world title ride, we anchor everything to FTP, unpack the concept of W', your anaerobic battery, and show why the extra effort you should spend climbing or into a headwind is far smaller than instinct suggests.

Whether you are chasing a marathon PB, a Zwift time trial, or simply trying not to blow up halfway, there are practical lessons here to get you to the finish faster. And if you enjoy it, this is only half of the full discussion. The complete version, plus a new Applied show every week, is waiting for you in the supporters club.

Links

Ross' PhD was on the anticipatory regulation of performance. That is, pacing. This is the main summary article that came out of that PhD and related work
The physiological regulation of pacing strategy for performance. Another review article from Ross' PhD work
The Hazard Score, and how RPE interacts with distance remaining to regulate pace, as discussed on the podcast
The paper that analyses world records and shows the surprising finding that performances have been unlocked with faster starts and smaller endspurts
Entropy and positive pacing in the 800m. Nice accurate conclusion, the rest, we aren't so sure we understand!

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Show notes

The big story this week is another Tour de France anti-doping row, with race leaders Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard woken to give samples at 5am and 2am. But first, we discuss a forgettable World Cup final and a long overdue Mile world record

(00:01:27) Spain beat Argentina to win the World Cup, in what Ross and Gareth reckon was the worst final in living memory. We discuss a game in which Argentina seemed intent on being regressive and aggressive, why the best player in the world was left stranded, the role fatigue and the extra day's rest may have played, and whether a solid tournament deserves better than a grudging seven out of ten.
(00:16:14) Josh Kerr does exactly what he said he would and breaks Hicham El Guerrouj's 27 year old mile world record at the London Diamond League, running near-perfect 55 second laps on route to his 222. Point 66. We get into his near-perfect even pace, how wavelight technology has reduced the risk and unburdened the athlete to chase physiological limits, whether that cheapens anything, and why the 1500m record should surely be next.
(00:35:23) The big story. Pogačar and Vingegaard were dope-tested at 5am and 2am on the morning of a mountain stage, and all hell broke loose. We explain why an 11pm to 6am block is normally sacrosanct and exempt from doping, but why allowances have to be made to test athletes within it on occasion. We the "serious and specific suspicion" exception that received judicial sign-off under French law, what that implies, and why we will probably never know. Vingegaard later crashed out with a broken collarbone, so we ask whether the two are linked, and the extent to which this is a wake-up call for cycling (and some of its fans), or just more of the same?
(00:59:36) And finally, the Commonwealth Games open in Glasgow this weekend, pared back to ten sports and stuck behind a paywall. Did anyone notice? Has the world moved on? We say a fond, faintly baffled farewell.

Links

Some stats from the one-sided World Cup Final
How the Mile was won: Some analysis of Kerr's record, including the splits Gareth read out
Some details on Josh Kerr's custom shoe
Ross' brief thoughts on the early morning testing controversy on X
More detail on the exemption made, judicial approval and nature of suspicions (good), along with some speculation about Seixas and a call for transparency (silly)
Vingegaard's team on the crash and possible reasons for it
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