Lactate: Fuel or Fiction? / Kona Lessons on Carbs and Pacing / World Rugby Cracks Down on the Hip Drop Tackle

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Show notes

This week, lactate gels go on sale with Tadej Pogačar’s name in the promotions, and we test the claim that lactate is a “third fuel source”, before revisiting carbs and the Kona collapses:

• (00:00:19) The lactate gel UAE Team Emirates used at the Tour de France is now on sale. We look at the marketing, ask whether 10 grams of lactate can beat 10 more grams of carbs, and go through the studies, which so far suggest stomach problems, unchanged blood lactate levels, and dubious performance benefits. Ross is skeptical, though open to a brain/signalling role, or a buffering effect
• (00:27:06) What Taylor Knibb got right at Kona (patient pacing, and a walk through an aid station), what Kristian Blummenfelt would change, and why Lucy Charles-Barclay “still doesn’t know what happened”
• (00:35:41) Tim Noakes now has a “novel” brain mechanism for why 120 grams of carbs an hour works. Is it a U-turn? And is it novel?
• (00:43:19) Road sprinter Jonathan Milan becomes the first man under 3:59 in the individual pursuit at the Track World Championships
• (00:51:13) A survey calls British Cycling’s culture “toxic”, and the judge in the Larry Nassar trial says sport has barely changed. Why is safeguarding so hard to implement in elite sports environments?
• (01:03:45) World Rugby cracks down on hip drop and knee drop tackles, and Ross explains the evidence that informed the decision, from 13,000 coded tackles
• (01:13:31) Canada beat England, ending their unbeaten run in women’s rugby
• (01:16:55) And finally, a boxing referee ignores the towel (twice), and Lamine Yamal has played 8,200 minutes of football by the age of 18.

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