A Data & Innovation article brought to you by

By Joe Lemire

Alexi Pappas is a multi-hyphenate: Greek-American Olympic runner, writer, filmmaker and actor. She is the Greek national record holder in the 10,000 meters (31:36), which she set while competing at the 2016 Rio Games.

Before that, Pappas was an All-American runner at Dartmouth, from which she graduated magna cum laude, and then completing her NCAA eligibility at Oregon while pursuing a graduate degree, helping the Ducks win indoor and outdoor track national titles.

Now with her eyes set on the marathon — she recently ran Boston and London as a guide for visually impaired runner Lisa Thompson — Pappas aspires to set the Greek national record. Her personal best is a 2:34:26, which set in 2020 at the Houston Marathon, less than a minute from Maria Polyzou’s national mark of 2:33:40.

Alexi Pappas is a multi-hyphenate: Greek-American Olympic runner, writer, filmmaker and actor. She is the Greek national record holder in the 10,000 meters (31:36), which she set while competing at the 2016 Rio Games. Before that, Pappas was an All-American runner at Dartmouth, from which she graduated magna cum laude, and then completing her NCAA eligibility at Oregon while pursuing a graduate degree, helping the Ducks win indoor and outdoor track national titles.

Now with her eyes set on the marathon — she recently ran Boston and London as a guide for visually impaired runner Lisa Thompson — Pappas aspires to set the Greek national record. Her personal best is a 2:34:26, which set in 2020 at the Houston Marathon, less than a minute from Maria Polyzou’s national mark of 2:33:40.

On her introduction to Oura . . .

I used to train in Oregon with a very closed professional group where everything was pretty micromanaged by a coach. There was a lot of guidance and hand holding, as I think a lot of athletes require, especially early on in their career.

I was exposed to Oura once I moved to Los Angeles and started training in different environments and not in the context of like one of those Olympic training groups. Because in these groups [like Oregon], you have a coach that has eyes on you, and they can see sometimes what you can’t about yourself, especially because my coach was an Olympian himself. He could see fatigue, where I couldn’t.

But once I moved to LA, there wasn’t always consistent eyes on me. So I needed to keep better eyes out for myself. And I learned about Oura from a friend of mine named Blue. He was wearing it, and I met him at the Chicago Marathon. And so I just started to learn about this and how it was different than the watch I was wearing, which wasn’t as accurate for the data about recovery.

On the metrics she finds most meaningful . . .

The readiness and sleep scores are more useful to me than anything else, as well as obviously the period tracker. To be perfectly honest, the sleep score has helped me figure out what of my habits will lead to the most restful sleep. I think the sleep score is something that I’m more dynamically interacting with—if I have had, you know, red meat for dinner, or if I’ve eaten at this time, or if I’ve eaten out versus cooking at home, or if I’ve gone to bed at this time, or different habits—so the sleep score is helping me get better sleep because that data is pretty consistent and my life is changing, if that makes sense. Then the readiness score is something that I use to adjust my actual training and activity for that day.

On how Oura data helps her make decisions . . .

It has really helped me because I live a very multifaceted life that I’m excited about. I’ve tried to see everything in my life as a choice rather than a sacrifice. For example, if I make a choice to drink, I now just have a better understanding of what it’s going to do to me, and therefore I’m making more informed choices.

And I’m someone who really values my time. So if I’m going to do something, whether it’s training or socially, I want to understand why and what I’m doing. I have adjusted specifics in my routine and been very amused and interested in how it affects my sleep. And it’s not always in the way articles that I read reflect because everybody’s so different. What affects my sleep might be different than what affects somebody else’s sleep. But it has allowed me to make adjustments in my life and be better educated.

The whole thing is that it’s information. What you choose to do with it is up to you, but to not know it at all is really disempowering. I’m a creative person—I make films and I write—and I sometimes like to think about criticism or feedback with my creative work as data that you can either choose to pay attention to or not. Just because I don’t ask for feedback on my book from my editors doesn’t mean my book is good or communicating, it just means I refuse to look or ask them the questions. And I think it’s like that with bloodwork or with Oura data where, just because you don’t want to know, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. So I’ve just found the information to be empowering, and I keep it in balance with, also, how do I really feel? It’s not the only information I use, but it’s an additional piece of information that I didn’t have prior.

On her current running career plan and goals . . .

It’s possible that I go to New York [for the marathon], but I think competitive-wise, I’m looking at a race in January. What I’m trying to do in my life is generally move in a direction of everything supporting everything else.

I would like to break the Greek record in the marathon as an overall goal. I think it’s like ‘should be broken, can be broken.’ It’s in the low 2:30s. And I have not had the opportunity to run a fully healthy marathon yet because I had this post-Olympic depression and did not realize what toll that took on my body.

For me, I don’t have anything to prove to myself or anyone else. I’m very happy with my career, but I have curiosity and fascination with the marathon that I think hasn’t been fully expressed yet as it was in the 10K. So, yeah, I think a winter marathon would be fun. I’m thinking about Houston, which is a really nice race, but we’ll see.

On balancing running with life . . .

I think this sport is evolving. If I’m being really honest with you where, before Covid, I think the world wanted this sharp, hard motivation of get out and grind, the world just got a little bit worn down by Covid. Generally in sport, but in running in particular, the energy has moved towards just be enjoying your sport and doing your sport. And I think that’s something that I see myself increasingly filling the role of in other people’s eyes and giving them permission to actually enjoy and lean into whatever form the sport takes for them.

Girls quit sports at twice the rate of boys by the age of 14. I’m very aware that that number, I think, is because, when they see female adult athletes, I don’t think they see themselves in it as much as it’s more common to see men playing sports in adulthood and pick up tennis, basketball. I think part of my privilege in this world is to be someone who shows that you can have a full life and still play your sport as a woman. It’s not why I do it, but I’m seeing that it is affecting people in that way. I think that number could shift if girls see more women in sport living a full life and still playing sports.

It’s not that I need these things for myself. It’s just that I love running, and I want to keep doing it. And it might take different forms—guiding, flying through like a fairy, racing, occasionally trying trails—but mostly I just really like the sport. In my creative career, a lot of the projects I’m doing are actually athletic in nature. I’m really embracing my identity as like an athlete in Hollywood, and I’m realizing that I actually don’t have to hang up my shoes like I thought I would. I can be an athlete and be a creative person. And that’s a strength, it’s not a weakness. I just haven’t fallen out of love with the sport, and I don’t think I ever will.

On the potential for wellness data to benefit young women . . .

Men and women obviously have different development timelines. And I think what has been really difficult is, when a young girl is going through puberty, for example, isn’t able to see the word ‘development’ as a really positive step in a really healthy life. I think the word ‘development’ is something that we generally don’t embrace. During those years, for example, to have a different vantage point about your health besides what a coach might say and also what social media might tell you is probably wise.

That’s because, as athletes, we’re really hard on ourselves and, to have some permission to be as kind to ourselves as we are hard on ourselves, is what we need. It can come from a coach and it can come from a book, but if it comes from data that’s specific to our bodies, I think we’re more likely to allow ourselves the chance to recover and therefore develop during those developmental years.

For me, personally, I didn’t run during those puberty years. It was because I had a coach in high school who wanted us to specialize in just running. And I was playing soccer and doing theater and student government. And this was before social media. So I wasn’t able to be like, ’Is this messed up?’ I just thought I was de facto not allowed to run unless I only ran. And I didn’t run because I wanted to have a well-rounded life. What the result was, I went through puberty very normally during the years when some people overtrain.

For someone who doesn’t happen to be kicked off their running team, and therefore develop normally, they should still be given data that shows that they’re healthy during a time when they might be self-conscious about an evolving body. So this Oura data can give you confidence. And it can give you ease where that time in life is so uneasy.

On why she likes Oura’s customizable dashboard . . .

There’s a new feature that you can remove the caloric [expenditure]. Here’s a more metaphorical way of putting this: Everybody receives information and inspiration differently. You might tell a kid ‘enjoy the journey,’ and it might not resonate with them. But maybe if they hear it from the right person or they hear it said in a different way, it resonates. And I think the fact that you can toggle and change the way the data speaks to you also acknowledges that people receive information differently. What’s useful to everyone is unique, and so I was always taught to focus on what’s useful. And something that might be useful for me might not be useful to you.

This article was brought to you by SportTechie, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SportTechie content in the field of athletic performance.

By Sarah Evans

After a brilliant first day of insights and learning at Twickenham Stadium, we were very excited to get Day 2 of our Sport Performance Summit underway. The agenda included sessions from Andrea Furst, Sport Psychologist at England Rugby, Rob Pountney, Chief Operating Officer at Breaking GB, and Kay Cossington, Head of Women’s Technical at the FA to name just a few.

Session 1: From Grassroots to Elite: Inclusion at Every Stage brought to you by Science in Sport  

Speakers:

Joel Shinofield, Managing Director, Sport Development, USA Swimming

Jatin Patel, Head of Inclusion & Diversity, Rugby Football Union

Moderator:

Shona Crooks, Head of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, Management Futures

We kicked off Day 2 with an extremely insightful session where Joel Shinofield and Jatin Patel delved deeper into how they are able to weave Inclusion and Diversity work into the fabric of their organisations.

Inclusion:

• Be inclusive first, and be really intentional with it. You want to foster an environment where people can be themselves and contribute.
• You need to ensure that when you bring in diverse talent, you have to provide them with the support to ensure they thrive.
• If you understand inclusion better, it will make engaging with diverse groups much easier.

What are you doing to make your organisations inclusive?

• Bystander training – how do we get teams to have more effective conversations and have the confidence to speak up? How do you ask better questions of each other?
• You have to invest in it. USA Swimming have a grant programme for clubs to move into new facilities. If you are able to access to the sport in your community, you are much more likely to be involved in the sport.
• Water has been an incredibly divisive tool in American history – pools were off limits to black families, so we have to acknowledge that first and intentionally increase greater access. We have to look at the ways in which we have excluded people to then help us find ways to include them.
• Rugby United – primarily aimed at black and Asian communities. England Rugby first looked at insights from these communities, their engagement, positive and negative experiences and tailor the approach to the specific communities. Ultimately it is about how we bring that cultural awareness into the broader game of rugby.
• Education is key, how to take responsibility of how to be more inclusive.
• On each of our teams there is someone who has DEI training. It is therefore woven into our coach development programmes. You have to make it part of your fabric.
• It is a strategic imperative as well as an outcome and output. ‘Drip drip’ it, don’t just have milestone big events, have it woven into every day and make sure it is pushed on the agenda constantly.
• Cognitive diversity starts with inclusion – how are you welcoming people in with new ways of thinking into your organisation?
  • Weekly department meetings, anyone can put something on the agenda, no matter your role.
  • How we approach specific groups where we know we haven’t done enough with in the past – there is a big gap in female coaching at the moment. Therefore we need a better pathway for young female coaches.
  • Data is crucial to understand how you haven’t served communities in the past so you can change it.
• Talk about it! Make it part of your everyday thoughts and conversations.

Session 2: Psychology and Purpose: Creating a Thriving Team Environment

Speakers:

Andrea Furst, Sport Psychologist, England Rugby and Surrey County Cricket Club

Helen Richardson-Walsh, Performance & Culture Coach, Tottenham Hotspur FC

For session two, we had a peer to peer interview between Andrea Furst and Helen Richardson-Walsh, who worked together as psychologist and athlete to win Rio 2016 Olympic Hockey Gold for Great Britain. The pair talked us through how they were able to create a winning team environment and the importance of the role psychology can play in performance.

• Fostering trust between the psychologist and athlete is key. The athlete trusting that they are having a confidential conversation has such a positive impact.
• Allowing the players to sit down and set the culture helped to get player buy-in straight away, and it was credit to the head coach to allow that to be the starting point.
• When your vision is ‘winning’ it can leave you with a very empty feeling or feel very disappointed even if you’re on the podium. There is something more than just winning.
• The biggest thing a head coach can do with regards to culture work is give it time. To have the whole staff and players group involved and integrate it into every day behaviours.
• ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ It is about what can you do on the hockey pitch, but also who can you be off it. To be role models for women in sport, to stand up for what you believe and use your voice for good.

GB Women’s Hockey Vision:

• Be the Difference; Create History; Inspire the Future.
• The vision, values and behaviours make you accountable. The language was everything everyone had bought into and would use regularly. You knew what was expected of yourself and of one another.

Individual mindset: Knowing your ‘A Game’

• It is so important for every individual to understand their performance mindset before they go out to play and take responsibility for this.
• Knowing this allows you to understand how to be consistent.
• This is a skill and it can be learned.
• You then share your A game with the rest of the team, and the team understand you better plus they know how they can help you to stay on your A game. It is for a team work on; and it normalises it.
• If it matters to the head coach, it matters to the athletes. The head coach sets the tone, if they disregard psychology or integrate it, it filters through to the players and makes a huge difference.

Session 3: When Sport Meets Culture: Lessons from the New Sports

Speakers:

Lorraine Brown, Head of Performance, GB Climbing

Rob Pountney, Chief Operating Officer, Breaking GB

Moderator: 

Edd Vahid, Head of Academy Football Operations, The Premier League

The final session before the lunch break, we heard from Lorraine and Rob who have been at the forefront of two new sports, and how they preparing for Olympics whilst staying true to the culture of their sports.

• We have had a cultural shift in climbing from participation to performance.
• We have to make sure the pathway is really clear, and look at ways to identify how to add value on a daily basis.
• You have to stay true to your own sport, it is easy to think you have to be like the other sports who have been well established. Keep the roots and culture of the sport whilst making the transition to Olympic sport and the increasing demands it brings.
• What does talent look like? Once we have talent, how do we help them progress? How do we create the experiences to help them fulfil their potential?
• Lots of athletes coming from other sports, migrate to climbing for its culture. How can we still be an outlet for other athletes who want to try something different?
• Breaking is about pushing the individual boundaries of your own creation which makes the training environment very challenging.
• The idea of making sure it is fun has to be top of the pile. We don’t have the fear of change right now, we are trying to find the way the sport should look based on the culture of the sport. We have the freedom to make bold decisions.
• Every day we have to accept the different behaviours from our athletes, they are more independent and have more control over their schedules. Coaches and team managers have to work with the athletes whilst embracing the individuality and creativity of the athletes.
• How do we maintain that cultural element but also raise the standard and expectation and develop the right environments for athletes and coaches to thrive in.

Session 4: Culture and Collaboration: Learning Through an Interdisciplinary System

Speaker: Carl Gombrich, Academic Lead & Head of Teaching & Learning, London Interdisciplinary School

Moderator: Jeanette Kwakye

In this session we heard from Carl about why interdisciplinary education is so important, rethinking expertise, and finally Interactional expertise.

Interdisciplinarity:

• Combining knowledge in new and useful ways.
• An explosion in the combinatorial space of ideas.
• Yet we don’t have the educational processes to support this. We often are taught in a very rigid, traditional way.
• It is a battle against specialisation.

• UCL Founded the first BASc (Bachelor of Arts And Science). This equipped the students with a very wide skillset, prepared for innovation in the workplace and a burning curiosity to understand all processes and independent thinking. Have unique combinations of knowledge.

• You are an expert because of your interdisciplinarity, not in spite of it.
• Sport is highly specialised, but the environments do change. Unless you are constantly drawing on new knowledge you won’t be able to adapt and grow.
• The value in going broad when you’re young.

Interactional Expertise:

• The ability to :
  • Ask penetrating questions
  • Play devil’s advocate or just advocate
• Translate accurately from one expert to another
• Sell
• Negotiate in unfamiliar areas
• Make jokes

Relationship to Interdisciplinarity:

• Perspective taking
• Translating between sectors
• Brokering
• Empathy
• Team Leading
• Creative approaches

Session 5: Case Study: England Lionesses

Speaker: Kay Cossington, Head of Women’s Technical, The FA

Moderator: Jeanette Kwakye

The final session of the day was one not to miss. We heard from Kay Cossington who took us through what it took to win European Gold.

Where the journey began:

• Huge investment of finances and people into women’s football. However, they grew so big so soon with little direction on where to go and how to get there.
• To get people to understand that the women’s and men’s game are different was the first big step over a major hurdle.
• Created Women’s Technical Division of the FA.
• Implemented the first Women’s technical strategy and became a blueprint for success within the women’s development teams.

Building their own Identity:

• ‘Find A Way’
• Courage
• Grounded

• However, they found that they then began working in silos. Very quickly they recognised that they had to collaborate and used the phrase ‘football first’.
• Had a curiosity of what made the best in class, and how they were able to close the gap.
• Final piece of the puzzle was to appoint the right leadership.

New Women’s Strategy:

1. Identify the Purpose: Inspire positive change
2. Performance Requirements: Elements required for success
3. Identify the gaps: England in relation to other nations
4. Performance Plan: Football first initiative
5. Understand & Deliver: All staff are aligned

• Be Different
• Take Risks
• Be Brave

“Play for the little girl inside of you who dreamt of being here one day” – Sarina Wiegman’s team talk ahead of the European Final.

A Data & Innovation article brought to you by

By Joe Lemire

Olympic gold medalist Dalilah Muhammad won the 400-meter hurdles at Rio 2016 and set the event’s world record twice in 2019, first at the USA national meet and again with a time of 52.16 seconds at that year’s world championship.

Muhammad later set a personal best of 51.58 seconds in the Tokyo Olympics, running what would have been another world record, if not for Sydney McLaughlin running even faster in the same race. In addition to that silver medal, Muhammad claimed a second career gold as part of the USA’s 4×400 relay team. At July’s World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Muhammad returned from a hamstring injury to finish third.

A 2007 IAAF World Youth title winner, Muhammad, now 32, is a native of Queens, New York who graduated with a business degree while compiling an All-American career running at the University of Southern California. She starred in Nike’s 2017 ad campaign on equality alongside Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe and LeBron James and, more recently, joined Cheribundi’s Pit Crew—its brand ambassadors of athletes and wellness experts promoting the company’s natural health products.

On why there’s been so many world records in the 400 hurdles . . .

I get this question a lot. And I think a couple of things come into play. The event is just run differently. It’s actually a newer event in track and field’s history—we didn’t start running the 400 hurdles until [the 1970s] when women actually started running the 400-meter hurdles. And I think at the time, it was thought of as a race for people that weren’t fast enough to run the open quarter [mile]. Originally, it was thought of that way, kind of like the steeplechase. You weren’t fast enough to run a flat distance, so your coach threw you in the steeplechase.

You had those standout athletes early on, but I think more and more people are falling in love with the 400 hurdles and it’s becoming that premier event. And it’s become a race that you have to be just as good in the 400, a good 800 runner and even a fast 200 runner to be able to run the 400-meter hurdles—as well as hurdle. It’s just a combination of finding that type of athlete that’s good and that has that type of broad talent.

And finding new ways to coach it. I think their approach in coaching has always been strength-based, and we’re turning it more into a sprint. And we’re seeing that now. When I first started doing the 400 hurdles, my coach would tell me and taught me to go out really slow and hold on and wait for that last 200. And now we’re all going from the gun because we know we can handle it. I think just having that faster increase in pace that first 200 is really making a difference.

On training tools for the hurdles . . .

I definitely look at video and look at myself and how I’m hurdling and how I can improve and what I’m seeing when I hurdle. I have a guy named Ralph Mann that comes to the track as well and analyzes our hurdle form. He created this model that can show you exactly, based on your weight and height, just how fast you’re getting over the hurdle, where you’re stepping over and the world record pace. Actually, he can put the model to a world record pace and see how close you are to it.

So we have those types of tools that we use, but of course it’s my coach’s eye, more than anything. He has the formula as to what hurdling should look like, and we’re adjusting it every year, honestly, trying to get better and better at it. So it’s just repetition and going over and over and reviewing just what I personally look like.

On how she improves her running technique . . .

I’ve become a better sprinter in the last couple years even just because of focusing on the form and looking at the greats to do it. I was just looking at [Usain] Bolt, looking at FloJo, just how she actually sprinted and what that looked like and just incorporating it into my own training. So that’s something that my coach and I really pay attention to—exactly what the form looks like. And that’s been a key component of my race. I never actually was that good of a sprinter—or at least I was told I wasn’t—so focusing really on the form has helped me to get faster.

On how there’s no typical training session . . .

As a 400 hurdler, we really do it all. I do interval work. I do speed endurance. I do distance. I’ll go up to like even 1K’s. I’ll run repeat 1000s. I’ll run repeat 200s. I’ll do short 30s at practice. And of course I hurdle as well. And there’s some days that I’ll just do straight 100-meter hurdle type training that you would see a typical 100 meter hurdler do. So there’s a huge balance. We really do a mix of every single thing, every single week.

On track shoe technology . . .

There’s a lot of controversy going around our spikes. Is it the spikes? Is it the athlete? And I feel like I’m not supposed to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway: Honestly, I think it’s both. I do think the advancement of our spikes has played a huge role in just how fast athletes have gotten.

To me, that’s not a bad thing. Those types of advancement have been made through history so many times, from just the type of ground that we compete on going from dirt to the Mondo we have now. Those advancements have been made, and you see the huge difference. And our timing system—there has been advancements in our timing system, and how much faster the world has gotten. And I think the spikes are definitely a part of that.

The important bit is it being an even-playing field. And I think they’ve done that amongst the companies. They put criteria that allows not one company to have an advancement when the other company cannot. If that didn’t exist, then maybe we’d be talking about something else, but the fact that it’s even amongst companies, yeah, I think we’re going in the right direction.

On feeling the immediate difference in her own spikes . . .

I remember the first time I put on the Nike spikes, and I said to the Nike guy, ‘Wow, I can break the world record in these.’ And that’s literally how it played out. That was in 2020. They were coming out with new shoes, testing them and having different models. And I broke it in 2021. So I think it’s great. I think technology should advance, and I’m happy that it has.

On her introduction to Cheribundi . . .

I’ve used their products for years now, but we just met recently. I told them my story back when I was in college, I started drinking tart cherry juice. It was introduced to us on campus as a snack that we can use to help recover and things like that. So I always loved it.

Nutrition was really focused on, especially when I went to the University of Southern California. And you notice, as an elite athlete, you start to realize how much the body needs to recover. There are different tools that we can use, and Cheribundi that we’ve been one of those tools that I’ve been using.

On the products she uses . . .

[I mostly] use their tart cherry juice for recovery, and I’ve recently just started using their one that has the melatonin in it as well. It helps you to sleep better, and especially when you’re traveling so much in our sport—we change time zones very frequently—and we have to adjust to that time period very quickly. Sometimes we are at a track meet, and we literally get there 48 hours before we compete—and we can be competing in China. So imagine the difference in time zones from China to Fort Worth, Texas. So that’s just something that helps me adjust really quickly, so I’m able to compete.

On whether she tracks her biometrics . . .

No, not really. Nothing for monitoring sleep and recovery. I definitely just pay close attention to how many hours I’m sleeping, and just making sure that I’m getting that eight hours of uninterrupted sleep as best as I can.

field. And I think they’ve done that amongst the companies. They put criteria that allows not one company to have an advancement when the other company cannot. If that didn’t exist, then maybe we’d be talking about something else, but the fact that it’s even amongst companies, yeah, I think we’re going in the right direction.

On feeling the immediate difference in her own spikes . . .

I remember the first time I put on the Nike spikes, and I said to the Nike guy, ‘Wow, I can break the world record in these.’ And that’s literally how it played out. That was in 2020. They were coming out with new shoes, testing them and having different models. And I broke it in 2021. So I think it’s great. I think technology should advance, and I’m happy that it has.

This article was brought to you by SportTechie, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SportTechie content in the field of athletic performance.

Former middle-distance runner Pippa Woolven was not aware that she was suffering from RED-S – relative energy deficiency in sport – until well afterwards such was the lack of general understanding of the condition at the time.

“It took several years to recover and the scars of that experience will forever remain,” she tells the Leaders Performance Podcast of her experiences of RED-S while competing in the US college system in the 2010s.

“I’m lucky enough to say I’m in a healthy place now and I hope to help other people avoid the same pitfalls.”

Woolven is the Founder, CEO and Director of Project RED-S, an initiative formed by a group of athletes, parents and partners whose lives had been impacted by a condition that is still relatively unknown and misunderstood.

Joining the conversation was James Morton, the Director of Performance Solutions at Science in Sport, who was part of a research project that revealed some time ago that just one in 23 of England’s Lionesses squad were consuming the correct quantities of carbohydrate.

The duo discuss the reasons why athletes succumb to RED-S and the ways in which the condition can be both treated and prevented.

They also touch upon:

• The causes of low energy availability [7:00];
• Team culture and the role of coaches in preventing RED-S [16:00];
• The role of parents in educating young athletes [24:00];
• How athletes can support team-mates in their fuelling [27:30].

Pippa Woolven LinkedIn | Twitter

James Morton LinkedIn | Twitter

Sarah Evans LinkedIn | Twitter

Listen above and subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Overcast, or your chosen podcast platform.

The Leaders Sport Performance Summit returned to Twickenham this week with Leaders Performance Institute members gathering in their multitudes to share insights and listen to some of sport’s most inspired practitioners.

We were also delighted to welcome you back in person and thought we’d kick things off with a performance flourish from Premiership champions Harlequins and how they have reconnected with their roots, we then segued into Thomas Frank’s sterling work at Premier League new boys Brentford FC, took a tour of performance environments at the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Blue Jays, before ending the day with stories from two of Team GB and ParalympicsGB’s most esteemed Olympic and Paralympic coaches.

Whether you were there or not, we’ve unlocked the Key Takeaways from Day 1 for our Digest readers. If you’re a member, recordings of the sessions are being added to the Intelligence Hub as we speak

Download Now

Full Day 1 programme:

Quins Case Study: Leadership, Culture & Identity

• Billy Millard, Director of Rugby Performance, Harlequins
• Danny Care, Professional Rugby Player, Harlequins

Bee Together: Developing a High Performance Environment

• Thomas Frank, Head Coach, Brentford FC

Corridor Culture: Mirroring Team Culture in Physical Environments

• Phil Cullen, Director of Basketball Operations & Innovation, San Antonio Spurs
• Angus Mugford, Vice President of Performance, Toronto Blue Jays

Bringing Ideas to Life: Approaching and Executing Innovation

• John Bull, Director & Lead for High Performance Research, Management Futures

Gold Rush: Stories From Tokyo & the Evolution of Coach-Athlete Relationships

• Gary Brickley, Dame Sarah Storey’s Coach and Senior Lecturer, University of Brighton
• Kate Howey, Head Coach, British Judo

Download Now

A Leaders Performance Podcast brought to you by our Main Partners

“Sometimes you can listen to advice and it might be wrong for you, so you’ve got to figure out what is good and what is bad for you – who’s your angel and who’s your devil,” says Asha Philip.

By John Portch

The British sprinter – a two-time Olympic 4x100m bronze medallist – is speaking to the Leaders Performance Podcast as part of the Keiser Athlete Optimisation series.

Asha won bronze with her teammates in Tokyo and talks about some of the steps that enabled her to go again after winning a medal in Rio in 2016.

Also on the conversational agenda are:

• The mental strength that defines elite sprinters [10:00];
• Asha’s need to be comfortable being uncomfortable [14:30];
• The importance of self-reflection and positive affirmations [15:30];
• Why she is increasingly taking care of her mental health [22:00].

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

Further listening:

Leaders Performance Podcast – Leadership & Culture Special

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