Evolution of Rugby Excellence

Who were the superstars, and what were the unforgettable moments of 2024? Who failed to launch, and who exceeded expectations? What are your hopes for sport and sports science in 2025? We draw a spectacular sporting year to a close with a look back at the highlights, lowlights, newsmakers and big stories of 2024. In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek "Sporting Awards" show, Mike, Gareth and Ross pick out their winners and losers, and the achievements that got us talking and debating. Inspired by the contributions and nominations from our Discourse community, we make our selections in categories ranging from the Moment of the Year to the Biggest Anticlimax of the last twelve months, with sports science insights and the big sports science stories covered in between.

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Podcast highlights: Some of the podcasts from 2024 that came up in this show:

• Dr Joe Warne on the scientific theme of 2024: Can we trust sports science?
• The Skeptics guide to sports science - Dr Nick Tiller joined us to talk about how marketing undermines sports science, with a little help from sports scientists
• As Gareth noted on the show, the podcast topic that generated the highest volume of Discourse chat was VO2max, your most important training metric
• Prof Louise Burke joined us to talk about why carbohydrates and not fats power most endurance athletes to better performance
• Prof Stuart Phillips on weight training - the one that changed Mike's exercise training routines.
• The science of hydration - this is the one that led to a really lively Discourse discussion about the scientific 'robustness' of hydration claims made on this show
• The Olympic Controversy podcast recorded at the time of the DSD controversy
• Ruth Chepngetich smashed the women's World Record, and the debate kicked off. We did a podcast on it in October
• We named BJSM as "Worst Team of the Year". This is the podcast we did on their shameful stance on women's sport and loss of scientific credibility

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