The Team behind the Team: Is sport becoming less human?

With the rise of data and artificial intelligence, is sport becoming less human? Katie Smith looks at how key decisions and tactics are made in elite sport by speaking to medal-winning athletes and coaches who have to make big decisions. Go inside a British Athletics relay camp as they prepare for the World Championships in Tokyo this September. After years of dropping batons and disqualifications they were the most successful sprint relay squad at the Paris Olympics, so how have they turned things around? Hear from Olympic medallist Laviai Nielsen, British Athletics relay coach Martyn Rooney and Head of Sprints and Relays Darren Campbell including how they pick a relay team and try to find the winning formula. Also go behind-the-scenes at the Tour de France with Ineos Grenadiers to hear from the riders on how much say they have in team strategy. Geraint Thomas outlines whether he feels cyclists still have their destiny in their own hands and if anything has changed as he approaches retirement. The True Athlete Project discuss athlete welfare, while Open University academic Dr Alex Twitchen shares how the coach/athlete relationship has changed over the years. The Team behind the Team is produced in partnership with the Open University. Team Ineos Grenadiers staff member David Rozman does not feature in this series and he was never interviewed or offered for interview during the process of gathering material for the series. Our production team was unaware of historical doping allegations relating to David Rozman and the 2012 season, which they have since been made aware of following the recording of this series.

You can listen to The Team behind the Team: Is sport becoming less human? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Team behind the Team: Is sport becoming less human? is an episode from 5 live Sport Specials by BBC.

This episode is 33:36 long.

This episode was published on Sep 1, 2025.

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