1Hi Thomas, how are you enjoying the course so far?
2Yeah, I think it's good.
3Remind me, why did you decide to study sports science?
4Didn't you want to be a professional athlete when you were at school?
5Yeah, that was my goal,
6and all my classmates assumed I would achieve it; they thought I was brilliant.
7That must have been a nice feeling.
8Mm, I thought I could win anything.
9There was no one who could run faster than me.
10Exactly, so what happened?
11Did your mum and dad want you to be more 'academic'?
12Not at all.
13Perhaps they should have pushed me harder, though.
14What do you mean?
15I think I should have practised more.
16What makes you say that?
17Well, I went out to Kenya for a couple of weeks to train...
18Really! I didn't know that.
19I was chosen to go there out of loads of kids and run with some of the top teenage athletes in the world.
20And... I was so calm about it.
21I just kept thinking how fortunate I was.
22What a great chance this was!
23Everyone back home was so proud of me.
24But once we started competing, I very quickly realised I wasn't good enough.
25That must have been a huge shock.
26I thought 'this can't be happening'!
27I was used to winning.
28I'm sorry to hear that.
29It's OK.
30I'm over it now
31and I think it's much better to do a university course
32and this one has such a variety of sports-related areas.
33It's going to be good.
34Oh, I agree, I chose it because of that.
35So Jeanne, have you thought of any ideas for the discussion session next week on technology and sport?
36We have to cover more than one sport, don't we?
37Yeah.
38You know, we always think technology is about the future,
39but we could gather some ideas about past developments in sport.
40Look at early types of equipment perhaps?
41I remember reading something about table tennis bats once,
42how they ended up being covered with pimpled rubber.
43Cos they were just wooden at first, I'd imagine.
44Yeah.
45In about the 1920s,
46a factory was making rolls of the rubber in bulk for something like horse harnesses.
47Really!
48Yeah, and someone realised that it would make a perfect covering for the wooden bats.
49So what about cricket,
50that's had a few innovative changes.
51Maybe the pads they wear on their legs?
52I don't think they've changed much but, I'm just looking on the internet...
53and it says that when the first cricket helmet came in, in 1978,
54the Australian batsman who first wore it was booed and jeered by people watching because it was so ugly!
55Wow, players have to protect themselves from getting hurt!
56I mean everyone wears one now.
57Mm, unlike the cycle helmet.
58Well, unless you're a professional,
59but you're right, many ordinary bikers don't wear a helmet.
60Hey, look at these pictures of original helmet designs.
61This one looks like an upside-down bowl!
62Yet, the woman's laughing,
63she's so proud to be wearing it!
64It says serious cyclists ended up with wet hair from all the hard exercise.
65I guess that's why they have large air vents in them now
66so that the skin can breathe more easily.
67OK, so we've done helmets.
68What about golf balls or better still golf clubs,
69they've changed a lot.
70Yeah, I remember my great grandfather telling me that because a club was made entirely of wood,
71it would easily break and players had to get another.
72There's no wood at all in them now, is there?
73No, they're much more powerful.
74The same must be true of hockey sticks.
75I don't think so because players still use wooden sticks today.
76What it does say here, though,
77is that when the game started you had to produce a stick yourself.
78I guess they just weren't being manufactured.
79So, one more perhaps.
80What about football?
81Well, I know the first balls were made of animal skin.
82Yeah, they covered them with pieces of leather that were stitched together,
83but... the balls let in water when it rained.
84Oh, that would have made them much heavier.
85That's right.
86You can imagine the damage to player's necks when the ball was headed.
87Oh, how painful that must have been!
88Yeah, well, I think we can put together some useful ideas...