Duncan French

speaker

44 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 11 Jul

Duncan French’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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FT News Briefing · Rewiring sport: How technology is helping athletes break barriers · 11 Jul 2026 podcast

We're a weight classification sport.

So our athletes have to actually make a particular weight class before they can compete.

And usually that means them modulating or changing their body weight a little bit prior to fights.

One of the fighters in the main event unfortunately had a bad weight cut and he had to drop out of the fight because he missed weight and he had to be transported to hospital.

Oh, my God.

Oh, gosh.

What happened?

He fainted.

We've got things like, you know, this metabolic cart, which people lie flat and we put this hood over their head, like a spaceman's helmet.

And ultimately what that does is measure your basal metabolic rate, how fast you burn calories, basically.

We can then start to understand how long you need to reduce weight or change your diet for over a number of weeks prior to the fight.

So it's a math equation, basically, but without these high-level technologies, we don't get that ability to really understand what's going on inside the body physiologically.

We've reduced the rates of missed weights significantly, about 68% reduction in missed weights over the last nine years.

It's a events and promotions company.

It sells tickets to a traveling circus.

Yes, we have a global roster of athletes, which we do see as our assets.

Without the fighters, there is no UFC.

There is no fight.

We don't own the rights to those fighters, like Liverpool FC or the Raiders here in Las Vegas.

These are all independent contractors.

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