
Sleeping Your Way to More EPO / Grand Slam Chaos / The UCI's Expensive Regulatory Defeat and a Weighing Scandal
From The Real Science of Sport Podcast by Professor Ross Tucker and Mike Finch
June 3, 2026 · 1h 0m
About this episode
The episode discusses the chaotic recent Grand Slam, cycling scandals, and the psychology of athlete retirement.
Join The Real Science of Sport Supporters club for ad-free listening and our exclusive weekly Applied Science show ! A monthly donation is all takes! This week's Spotlight opens in Paris, where Roland Garros has delivered one of the most chaotic and compelling Grand Slams in recent memory, and ends on a Las Vegas track with a promise of $10 million unlikely to be fulfilled. Along the way, we explore retirements and comebacks, bike weight scandals, regulatory issues and a surprising way to boost your red blood cells. In today's Show: For the first time in the Open era, not a single former Grand Slam champion reached the men's round of 16. Ross and Gareth try to make sense of a tournament turned on its head by epically long five-set matches, multiple two-set-up defeats, and the emergence of potential new stars to challenge the duopoly atop men's tennis Sinner is gone, Djokovic is gone, and the heat played a starring role. We revisit our applied show on heat adaptation to explain exactly why Sinner's implosion was both predictable physiologically, but surprising in its speed and persistence Serena Williams has accepted a wildcard to play doubles at Queen's at 44 . We explore the…
People in this episode
Hosts: Ross Tucker, Mike Finch
Topics covered
- Grand Slam tennis
- cycling scandals
- athlete retirement
- heat adaptation
- red blood cell boost
Keywords
- EPO
- Grand Slam
- UCI
- retirement
- cycling
- heat adaptation
- Serena Williams
- Lorena Wiebes
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Paris, Las Vegas
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