Performance People

Jacqui Oatley is a hugely respected sports journalist, commentator and presenter who in 2007 became the first woman ever to commentate on Match Of The Day. In fact, her career is full of media firsts for women, although all she ever wanted to do was the job she loved.A football obsessive from a young age, a serious knee injury in her twenties led to her reappraising her career. She retrained as a sports journalist, she worked her way up from non-league football, to the Premier League on Radio Five Live. An opportunity to commentate on Britain’s flagship football highlights programme blew up into a huge national media story with her at the centre. As the first woman to ever call a match on the show, she faced a torrent of publicity, criticism and, frequently, abuse. Jacqui tells her story vividly and honestly from the inside, describing what it was like to be at the centre of a cultural moment, how she had to develop a thick skin to get through the aftermath, how things have progressed and why there’s still work to do across the board.

Now the dust has settled on the 37th America's Cup, it's the perfect time to look back on how things played out both on and off the water with the skipper and CEO of INEOS Britannia, Ben Ainslie.As well as some stories from the inside, Ben considers the highs and lows of his team’s journey to face off against the Kiwis, the details that he thinks made the difference and the biggest lessons, both collectively and personally, he’ll take in to next time.He tells us how the boat’s near sinking made him realise how much potential was in the team, explains the challenges of having leadership roles both on the boat and on the business side and looks ahead at what it’ll take to take the extra step and win the cup for Britain for the first time in history.As always, the parallels between success in sport and life are on show here, with insights on everything from team-building to handling pressure.

A true rugby union hall-of-famer who ranks as one of the best scrum-halves who ever played the game, George Gregan is known for having the whole package - skill, creativity, tenacity, intelligence, sportsmanship and leadership. He is the seventh most capped player of all-time with 139 appearances for Australia, 59 of them as skipper.George puts these remarkable performance standards down to the moment at 19 when he gained a scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport. It’s what he learned there, from elite coaches, specialists and athletes in every sport and discipline, that paved the way for the personal and team success that followed.He shares some of the lessons that can be applied to anyone looking for performance gains in their own life - how preparation can see you through even unexpected challenges, how regular reflection can iron out problems and the factors which make the difference between good and great.

Professor Russell Foster is one of the world’s leading experts on sleep and circadian health. He explains how modern lifestyles have disrupted our natural body clocks and why many of us aren’t getting the quality sleep we need to perform at our best. More importantly he goes through ways  to get back into the rhythm. As Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University, Russell says it’s vital we understand the importance of sleep in how our minds and bodies function to unlock its benefits. Expect to learn why light plays such a crucial role, what to do if you wake up in the night, why it’s not all about getting eight hours, why bad sleepers have a negative world view, and why dreaming helps us solve complex problems.You can take the anxiety out of sleep by taking back control. Get it right and it can become the most effective performance enhancer we have. 

Adam Jones is a former Major League baseball player, a five-time all star and four-time Golden Glove who retired a fan favourite and local legend for the Baltimore Orioles having spent 11 happy and successful years there. He was even given a ceremonial send-off in front of fans and dignitaries when he retired to mark his time in the city.Rewind to 2008 though and few would have predicted such an outcome. Adam was just a prospect in his early 20s when he was told he was being sold and had to leave the safety net of his native west coast for the other side of the country.Initially shocked, he could have seen it as rejection and played the victim. But he’s not cut like that. Within minutes his brother told him it was a chance to ‘show out’. To prove how good he can be to a whole new set of people. And Adam spent the next decade turning an unforeseen hurdle into a new adventure and a remarkable career on and off the field. Adam’s story is a lesson for all of us in the power of attitude when things don’t appear to go your way.

Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge is a two-time Olympic marathon champion who has run four of the fastest 10 marathon times in history. In this latest episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Eliud looks back to his most memorable achievement - the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, when he became the first runner to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon, in Vienna in 2019.He shares the story of how he and the support team achieved what was once inconceivable. From the training requirements to prepare his body, to the mental approach that allowed him to believe the impossible. In fact, he explains that it was being told that it couldn’t be done which gave him the motivation to show the world that it could.He is now on a mission to inspire people in different fields that running is a force for good and that no human is limited.

Ellie Aldridge was on track to be a dinghy sailor when a chance to try kiteboarding ahead of its Olympic debut came up. Quickly, she had to choose which sport to focus on. It was a decision that would change her life. Just six years later she became the sport’s inaugural Olympic champion in Marseille.In the latest episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Ellie looks back on that golden moment this summer - how she handled the tricky conditions, why she never allowed herself a second to imagine that gold medal and what it really feels like to fly across the ocean to win a flawless race and make history.She also explains the challenge of having to maintain an unnaturally heavy weight in order to compete and what it means for her title defence in LA in 2028.Now a sailor in the Women’s America’s Cup team, Ellie also discusses her role in the British Athena team as it tries to make history in Barcelona.

Hannah Mills is already one of British sailing’s all-time greats, a double gold medallist and double world champion, she’s currently on-board strategist for the Emirates GBR SailGP team and skipper of the British Athena Pathway team in the first ever Women’s America’s Cup in Barcelona.In this latest episode in our ‘A Moment in Time’ series of Performance People with the Inside Tack podcast, Hannah looks back to Rio in 2016 and her first gold medal triumph in the Women’s 470 with Saskia Clark. Having been gutted with silver in London four years earlier, she recalls what made the difference this time. From dealing with adversity through meticulous planning and role play, handling nerves and pressure by sticking to routines, and using self-talk to counter often unbearable nerves, Hannah is someone we can all identify with - and learn from.She also shares what it’s like to compete at the top of her sport as a mother, and what it means to be leading a new era of opportunity in women’s sailing.