Winter Olympic Spotlight: Vonn('s gate) and risk / Cross Country Klaebo / Speed Skating Unfairness / Penis-gate

Become a Science of Sport Supporter, and get access to our Discourse chat community, and to our upcoming Real Science of Sport Live Chats . A small monthly pledge or donation on Patreon is all it takes The opening five days of the Milan Cortina Winter Games have produced some spectacular performances and notable talking points. The Spotlight reveals some insights on those performances. We ask whether Lindsay Vonn's decision to race only 9 days after a ruptured ACL was a justifiable, correct one? Gareth has a new favourite sport - Cross-country skiing, dominated in spectacular fashion by Johannes Hofslot Klaebo and Sweden's women. Gareth is less enamoured with figure skating, but we discuss subjective sports and how coverage has improved to offer insights on scoring, and where it can continue to advance. We commend the coverage and footage from the Games, with revolutionary, spectacular drone footage. Speed skating is also in the Spotlight, and we share some insights that have been missing from the coverage, related to pacing. We also discover that some researchers suggest that the lane allocation offers significant advantages in some events. And finally, we end on 'penis-gate', the story (or is that a non-story) about the search for ski-jumping distance through the most literal application of 'marginal gains' you can imagine. That, and more, in the first of our Winter Olympic Spotlight shows. Links The story of ski jumpers injecting acid into their genitals for jumping gains The Guardian's coverage of Lindsay Vonn's dramatic downhill Our supporters weigh in on Vonn's decision to race, with some insightful comments and question s ( supporters only - pledge above for access !) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Winter Olympic Spotlight: Vonn('s gate) and risk / Cross Country Klaebo / Speed Skating Unfairness / Penis-gate is an episode from The Real Science of Sport Podcast by Mike Finch.

This episode is 53:37 long.

This episode was published on Feb 11, 2026.

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