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Sportshour

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Live Saturday morning global sports show with reports, debate and humour

Live Saturday morning global sports show with reports, debate and humour.

Sportshour: All in the Knees: The Secret of Usain Bolt's Success?

The Secret of Usain Bolt's Success: All you Knees to Know

22/11/2014

All in the Knees: The Secret of Usain Bolt's Success?

BBC World Service - Sportshour, All in the Knees: The Secret of Usain Bolt's Success?

Could the secret behind sprint superstar Usain Bolt’s success be his knees?

What is the secret behind sprint superstar Usain Bolt’s success? Could it be his knees? New research has suggested that the more symmetrical your knees the faster you run. So is it this factor that has given Bolt and other Jamaican sprinters the ability to bring the competition to their knees? Professor Robert Trivers of Rutgers university in the US believes it is.

AFCON 2015 – Now More at Risk?
Has the recent decision to move the Africa Cup of Nations meant an increase in the risk that the tournament will be affected by Ebola? That is the claim one campaigner has made to Sportshour. Equatorial Guinea has one of the more basic healthcare systems in Africa. We explore how prepared it is to cope with any outbreak. Plus, should dictatorships be rewarded with international sporting events?

Aussie Snooker
Meet the snooker player allergic to the baize. We hear from Australian Vinnie Calabrese about how the more he played the worse his skin condition got. Now recovered he not only lives with compatriot and defending champion Neil Robertson but is 'financially and emotionally sponsored' by him.

Sport of Scrabble
Is Scrabble a sport? Organisers of the World Scrabble championships in London say it is. Competitors, who have travelled from as far as the Philippines and Pakistan agree. The current Nigerian champion says that government support and sponsorship has enabled participation to grow in the country. 

Fifa Corruption: A Beginner’s Guide
With more twists and turns than a Hollywood blockbuster we offer a simple guide to the Fifa World Cup saga. Against the clock, Richard Conway presents a three minute analysis after another week of revelations.

With or Without Protection
Would American Football be a safer game if players did not wear helmets? That is the view of Dr Mike Loosemore, the man who helped implement new rules that has seen men’s amateur boxing remove head guards. However at the current Women amateur boxing championships in South Korea the competitors are wearing head guards, so why?

The F1 Champions that Never Was
As the Formula One season comes to its dramatic conclusion we hear from one former world championship contender still hoping to make it back to a Grand Prix despite a serious injury - Poland’s Robert Kubica.

Sporting Witness 
In November 1994, Tegla Loroupe came from nowhere to win the New York Marathon in the first ever international win for a Kenyan - either male or female. New Yorkers took this tiny unknown runner to their hearts and she became a legend to all female distance runners from Africa who have followed in her footsteps.

(Photo: Usain Bolt and his knees celebrates winning gold at the World Athletics Championships in Moscow in 2013. Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

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