BBC Science Focus Magazine

WHY ATHLETIC GENES DON'T GUARANTEE GOLD MEDALS

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

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