COLUMNISTS
WHY ATHLETIC GENES DON’T GUARANTEE GOLD MEDALS
COMMENT
Sporty parents are only part of the puzzle when it comes to making an Olympic champion
PROF GILES YEO
(@GilesYeo)
Giles Yeo is a professor at the University of Cambridge researching food intake, genetics and obesity. He is also a broadcaster and author. His latest book is Why Calories Don’t Count (£10.99, Orion)
During the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, I was on a family hiking holiday in Yorkshire. In the evenings, after a meal and a couple of drinks in the pub, we would sit down to watch the coverage of the day’s events. My favourite was track cycling.
If you’ve never watched a bunch of athletes, all of whom have thighs that are thicker than a supermodel’s waist, racing around a polished wooden track at ridiculous speeds, on bikes that only have one gear and no brakes, I can highly recommend it. It’s a sport that the UK excels at.