Josh Noble

speaker

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

Josh Noble’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

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

I'll find out how it's changing the way athletes train and compete. voice-verified

And I'll be asking if these technological advances are making sports better or worse for both players and fans. voice-verified

In this, the first of our three episodes, I want to find out what tech is doing for the athletes, both for their careers and for how they compete. voice-verified

Episode one, The Athlete. voice-verified

First up, let's start with a simple but important question. voice-verified

Steve says if you step back and look at the first official Olympic records we have and how they've been broken over time, you can actually see something quite interesting. voice-verified

Look at the marathon record. voice-verified

In 1896, the top marathon time was two hours, 58 minutes. voice-verified

By 1960, the best runners got it down to two hours, 15 minutes. voice-verified

It's taken another 60 years to get to the two hour mark you heard about at the top of the show. voice-verified

15 minutes in more than 60 years. voice-verified

Some of the early 20th century gains came down to better nutrition and quality of life. voice-verified

But after that, it could just be a matter of the growing number of people on the planet. voice-verified

Just the icing on the icing on the cake. voice-verified

Although each new technology might only give athletes a tiny advantage, taken together, they can add up to a huge improvement in performance. voice-verified

About a decade ago, our sports engineer Steve actually tested the impact of technology on competition, specifically for the 100 metre sprint. voice-verified

What difference would it make if you took a modern athlete and made them use the running shoes and equipment of yesteryear? voice-verified

Steve wanted to recreate the conditions from the 1936 Olympics when American sprinter Jesse Owens won the 100 meters gold. voice-verified

So he enlisted a sprinter named Andre de Grasse to run the test. voice-verified

Digging your own starting mounds went on until 1948, when the first standardised starting blocks were introduced at the Olympics. voice-verified

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