Episodes
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Now the dust has settled on the 37th America's Cup, it's the perfect time to look back on how things played out both on and off the water with the skipper and CEO of INEOS Britannia, Ben Ainslie.
As well as some stories from the inside, Ben considers the highs and lows of his team’s journey to face off against the Kiwis, the details that he thinks made the difference and the biggest lessons, both collectively and personally, he’ll take in to next time.
He tells us how the boat’s near sinking made him realise how much potential was in the team, explains the challenges of having leadership roles both on the boat and on the business side and looks ahead at what it’ll take to take the extra step and win the cup for Britain for the first time in history.
As always, the parallels between success in sport and life are on show here, with insights on everything from team-building to handling pressure.
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A true rugby union hall-of-famer who ranks as one of the best scrum-halves who ever played the game, George Gregan is known for having the whole package - skill, creativity, tenacity, intelligence, sportsmanship and leadership. He is the seventh most capped player of all-time with 139 appearances for Australia, 59 of them as skipper.
George puts these remarkable performance standards down to the moment at 19 when he gained a scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport. It’s what he learned there, from elite coaches, specialists and athletes in every sport and discipline, that paved the way for the personal and team success that followed.
He shares some of the lessons that can be applied to anyone looking for performance gains in their own life - how preparation can see you through even unexpected challenges, how regular reflection can iron out problems and the factors which make the difference between good and great.
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Professor Russell Foster is one of the world’s leading experts on sleep and circadian health.
He explains how modern lifestyles have disrupted our natural body clocks and why many of us aren’t getting the quality sleep we need to perform at our best. More importantly he goes through ways to get back into the rhythm.
As Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University, Russell says it’s vital we understand the importance of sleep in how our minds and bodies function to unlock its benefits. Expect to learn why light plays such a crucial role, what to do if you wake up in the night, why it’s not all about getting eight hours, why bad sleepers have a negative world view, and why dreaming helps us solve complex problems.
You can take the anxiety out of sleep by taking back control. Get it right and it can become the most effective performance enhancer we have.
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Brett Gosper is a leading figure on the business side of global sport, having been CEO of World Rugby during a pivotal era, and now, in a key role at the NFL as Head of Europe and Asia-Pacific.
It’s a career that has come full circle as Brett recalls the moment when, as a promising rugby union player, he was on the verge of breaking in to the Australian national squad with the rest of his 20s already mapped out in his head.
When he was told he hadn’t made the cut, what seemed at the time like a personal failure actually sent him on a new path - to France, where he played top tier club rugby whilst building a career in advertising, which ultimately led to his current role as a sports leader.
In this week’s episode, Brett shares his memories of rugby’s amateur era, the personal lessons he learned in sport and business, the greatest challenges during his time in World Rugby and what working in the NFL has taught him about the differences with American sport and the Premier League.
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Adam Jones is a former Major League baseball player, a five-time all star and four-time Golden Glove who retired a fan favourite and local legend for the Baltimore Orioles having spent 11 happy and successful years there. He was even given a ceremonial send-off in front of fans and dignitaries when he retired to mark his time in the city.
Rewind to 2008 though and few would have predicted such an outcome. Adam was just a prospect in his early 20s when he was told he was being sold and had to leave the safety net of his native west coast for the other side of the country.
Initially shocked, he could have seen it as rejection and played the victim. But he’s not cut like that. Within minutes his brother told him it was a chance to ‘show out’. To prove how good he can be to a whole new set of people.
And Adam spent the next decade turning an unforeseen hurdle into a new adventure and a remarkable career on and off the field. Adam’s story is a lesson for all of us in the power of attitude when things don’t appear to go your way.
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Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge is a two-time Olympic marathon champion who has run four of the fastest 10 marathon times in history.
In this latest episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Eliud looks back to his most memorable achievement - the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, when he became the first runner to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon, in Vienna in 2019.
He shares the story of how he and the support team achieved what was once inconceivable. From the training requirements to prepare his body, to the mental approach that allowed him to believe the impossible. In fact, he explains that it was being told that it couldn’t be done which gave him the motivation to show the world that it could.
He is now on a mission to inspire people in different fields that running is a force for good and that no human is limited.
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Ellie Aldridge was on track to be a dinghy sailor when a chance to try kiteboarding ahead of its Olympic debut came up. Quickly, she had to choose which sport to focus on. It was a decision that would change her life. Just six years later she became the sport’s inaugural Olympic champion in Marseille.
In the latest episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Ellie looks back on that golden moment this summer - how she handled the tricky conditions, why she never allowed herself a second to imagine that gold medal and what it really feels like to fly across the ocean to win a flawless race and make history.
She also explains the challenge of having to maintain an unnaturally heavy weight in order to compete and what it means for her title defence in LA in 2028.
Now a sailor in the Women’s America’s Cup team, Ellie also discusses her role in the British Athena team as it tries to make history in Barcelona.
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Hannah Mills is already one of British sailing’s all-time greats, a double gold medallist and double world champion, she’s currently on-board strategist for the Emirates GBR SailGP team and skipper of the British Athena Pathway team in the first ever Women’s America’s Cup in Barcelona.
In this latest episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Hannah looks back to Rio in 2016 and her first gold medal triumph in the Women’s 470 with Saskia Clark. Having been gutted with silver in London four years earlier, she recalls what made the difference this time.
From dealing with adversity through meticulous planning and role play, handling nerves and pressure by sticking to routines, and using self-talk to counter often unbearable nerves, Hannah is someone we can all identify with - and learn from.
She also shares what it’s like to compete at the top of her sport as a mother, and what it means to be leading a new era of opportunity in women’s sailing.
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If you’re one of Manchester United and England’s greatest full-backs, and a pivotal figure in Sir Alex Ferguson’s golden years, you have a lot of good moments to reflect on, but for Gary Neville, one night in Barcelona stands out above all others.
In the latest episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Gary took us back to the Nou Camp in 1999 for the remarkable treble-winning moment his United side came back from a goal down to beat Bayern Munich 2-1, with both United’s goals coming in injury time.
He shares the lessons the team needed to learn to get over the line, the factors that gave them the belief to turn the game around and the tactical changes that made the difference.
It’s a revealing and colourful account of what it felt like to play in the most dramatic and memorable Champions’ League final - including the all-night (and all-morning) celebration that followed. Gary also puts the achievement in context with his whole career and explains why he’s happier now as a pundit and entrepreneur than he ever was as a professional known for his intensity and high standards.
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John Bertrand is the America’s Cup skipper who led Australia to an historic against-the-odds victory over the USA in their own back yard in 1983. It’s been dubbed ‘The Race of the Century’ and is the subject of a Netflix film of the same name.
In the fifth episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, John takes us inside this incredible story to reveal the thinking, leadership and values which took the Australia II team from plucky underdogs to world champions, against the might of New York Yacht Club.
He also offers his insight into the 2024 America’s Cup and explains why it’s the team that finds a way to learn, develop and innovate the most during competition that will likely win.
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Entrepreneur, investor and Team Principal + CEO of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, Toto Wolff started his career as a racing driver and instructor in his native Austria before turning his attention, with phenomenal success, to business.
He later combined his expertise as an entrepreneur with his passion for motorsport, as an investor in Williams F1 before leading the Mercedes F1 team into a period of incredible success which featured eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships and seven consecutive Drivers’ Championships.
In the fourth episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Toto recalls the moment, alone in a car after the Austrian Grand Prix, that he first took in the nature of his journey from a struggling kid to the pinnacle of his sport.
He shares the lessons and insights that he’s picked up along the way from his preference for action over words, the importance of sharing success with others and why he immediately resets to the next goal but makes sure not to look too far ahead.
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The Importance Of Breaking Down Your Big Dream Into Smaller Steps | George Russell George Russell is one of Formula One’s hottest young talents, now in his third season at Mercedes alongside Lewis Hamilton.
In the third episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, George reflects on the key stepping stones that took him from karting as a kid with his brother to his current seat at the top of his sport.
His phenomenal record in Formula Two put him in the shop window but it took an impromptu email to change his career path, confirming that even at this level, timing is everything.
He describes the emotion of his first F1 race win in Brazil and what surprised him most about that moment, and shares some of the key performance lessons he’s learned along the way including his personal antidote to pressure and nerves.
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With an astonishing seven Formula One Driver Championships, 201 podiums and 105 race wins, Sir Lewis Hamilton’s career record is unparalleled in the history of his sport. His prodigious natural talent combined with a relentless will to win saw him become the most successful rookie in history back in 2007 and he’s never looked back, except to check his rivals in the mirror.
In the second episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Lewis looks back on the defining moments in his career, starting with the decision to join Mercedes that sent his career on to a new level. He remembers the thrills of his formative days in karting which shaped so many of the attributes that mark him out as such a special driver, he reflects on how he’s learned to handle the responsibility of carrying the hopes of his entire team on race weekend and looks back on some of the individual races and moments that have stayed with him.
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As the summer of sport moves towards the 37th America’s Cup, we look back to the remarkable 2013 edition in a special episode of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast.
Oracle Team USA were 8-1 down and going nowhere against Emirates Team New Zealand who needed only one more win to lift the Auld Mug. Enter Ben Ainslie, who was brought in as tactician in a last-gasp move to try to change things up. And boy did it work, as he reeled off seven straight wins to set up a winner-takes-all decider.
Ben takes us back to that time when the sporting world was glued to events in San Francisco Bay, recalling the moment he was asked to join the crew, the nature of the challenge he faced, the details that helped shift the momentum and the impact it had on his own career, as he leads INEOS Britannia in their attempt to win the trophy for Britain this autumn.
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Georgie Ainslie and guest Professor Greg Whyte debate the most memorable performances from the second week of the Paris Olympics, breaking down what made them stand out from the rest. Featuring the serene brilliance of Team GB’s Keely Hodgkinson, the emergence of a new European track and field superstar and the mechanics behind what made the men’s 100m so special.
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Georgie Ainslie and guest Professor Greg Whyte look back at the most memorable performances from the first week of the Paris Olympics, breaking down what made them stand out from the rest. From the otherworldly brilliance of Simone Biles to the longevity of Tom Daley, plus the Team GB all-time great who doesn’t get the recognition they deserve.
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When Craig Wood was an 18-year-old soldier, a roadside bomb in Afghanistan left him a triple amputee.
After a gruelling rehabilitation full of operations and setbacks, he needed a new focus and felt the pull of the sea as soon as he left hospital.
A keen windsurfer before his injuries, he began to learn para sailing and it changed his life. He now lives on a catamaran with his wife and two young kids, travelling the world.
But that’s the just the start. In January 2025 he is planning to sail 6,000 nautical miles solo from Mexico to Japan to raise money for the charities which helped him recover and to show other amputees just what’s possible. He'd become the first para sailor to do so.
At the heart of Craig’s story is his lust for life and his resolute unwillingness to compromise on how he wants to live it. He discusses with Georgie why he’s taking on a challenge that to many of us consider terrifying, the specific hurdles he’ll need to face down and why he’s already excited about coming home. Craig’s attitude is contagious and his story speaks to the freedom that comes from finding your passion.
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At the Tokyo Olympics, two-time gold medallist Helen Glover showed to herself and the world that a working mother could also be an Olympian. And that, so we thought, was that. Except, well, some people are cut from a different cloth and Helen saw an opportunity to prove that women shouldn’t be written off at a certain age or life stage. What if she could medal in Paris at 38 with her kids at the finish line and at an age when they would remember seeing their mum doing her thing? Helen describes how she came to decide on such a big turnaround, how she juggles the different roles in her life and why she thinks being a parent has actually changed her career as an athlete for the better. Helen also compares how this Olympics compares to her first in 2012, the differences in moving from a pair to a team of four and she describes, beat by beat, what it’s like to actually race in an Olympic final when it’s all on the line.
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As a writer for The Times, Matt Dickinson has been an original and trusted voice on the key sporting events and characters of the last 25 years. He came to prominence as the reporter behind the interview with then England manager Glenn Hoddle in which Hoddle’s remarks on reincarnation ultimately led to his sacking. Matt recalls how being involved in such a high-profile story affected him, what it’s like to watch sport for a living and picks out the most compelling sporting figure he ever came across. He remembers the drama in the Nou Camp in 1999 when he had to rewrite his story in a matter of minutes and explains how he’s come to realise that his obsession with sport is actually less about the action on the pitch and more about a fascination with what makes extraordinary people tick. Which might explain why he’s now moving into psychotherapy.
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When Tim Herman first went to Wimbledon as a 6-year-old and saw Bjorn Borg play, his fate was sealed. It was tennis all the way. Fifteen years later, he was playing his first match as a pro on Centre Court, the place he wishes he could have played his whole career on. Tim looks back on his life in a tennis and sports-obsessed family, how he handled the pressure of being the great British hope at Wimbledon, the matches he remembers most fondly and a few inside stories from behind the ropes at the All England Club. He also shares his views on the opponents who stood out including his pick in ‘the greatest of all-time’ debate. Tim recalls the moment he knew it was the right time for him to retire, and what he wishes for Andy Murray as he prepares to do the same. He remembers his tennis-obsessed father who had to pretend he was a picture of calm for every Wimbledon and tells us why his own daughters haven’t followed in his tennis shoes.
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