Former Wasps forward Kearnan Myall is now performance director of GB Snowsport and using F1 tech and brain science to prepare for Milano Cortina 2026 It is not every day that a former rugby player is pivotal to Great Britain’s Winter Olympic prospects. Until recently Kearnan Myall, who spent 15 seasons playing professionally for Leeds, Sale and Wasps, had never skied so it has been a steep learnin...
Former Wasps forward Kearnan Myall is now performance director of GB Snowsport and using F1 tech and brain science to prepare for Milano Cortina 2026 It is not every day that a former rugby player is pivotal to Great Britain’s Winter Olympic prospects. Until recently Kearnan Myall, who spent 15 seasons playing professionally for Leeds, Sale and Wasps, had never skied so it has been a steep learning curve. “The most humbling thing is being at the top of the run with the Paralympic team, who are mostly visually impaired, and they just disappear into the distance while I’m still putting my boots on.” As performance director of GB Snowsport, nevertheless, Myall’s job is to give the nation’s talented crop of snowboarders, freestyle, alpine and mogul skiers a decisive edge when the Games commence in Milan next week. And if Zoe Atkin, Kirsty Muir, Mia Brookes, Charlotte Bankes and others secure medals, helped by Formula One technology – liaising with McLaren to find a new type of material for ski bindings, brain science, cutting-edge coaching and the creative example of Mercury Prize-winning musicians, it will further establish the 39-year-old Myall as one of sport’s smartest thinkers. Continue reading...
Even Turki al-Sheikh’s most severe critics acknowledge that, under his guidance, the Saudi interests that have dominated professional boxing in recent years have paid generous purses to fighters. Now the Saudis have turned to TKO Group Holdings and Dana White to oversee Zuffa Boxing – a newly created vehicle designed to expand the footprint of its equity partners in the United States. Zuffa Boxing...
Even Turki al-Sheikh’s most severe critics acknowledge that, under his guidance, the Saudi interests that have dominated professional boxing in recent years have paid generous purses to fighters. Now the Saudis have turned to TKO Group Holdings and Dana White to oversee Zuffa Boxing – a newly created vehicle designed to expand the footprint of its equity partners in the United States. Zuffa Boxing is taking a far less generous approach toward fighters than Sheikh did. That’s evidenced by the contract that many of the fighters being recruited by Zuffa are being asked to sign. Almost two dozen people have been interviewed for this article. Some of them asked that they not be mentioned by name out of concern that it could invite retaliation or damage professional relationships. Others had no such reservations. Let’s put the matter in context. TKO Group Holdings is a sports and entertainment company whose vast portfolio includes UFC and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). On 6 August of last year, TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro announced: (1) TKO was forming a boxing promotional company called Zuffa Boxing that would be a joint venture between TKO Holdings, the Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority, and Sela (a live-experiences and recreational company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund) (2) Zuffa Boxing would promote approximately 12 “league” fight cards annually for a period of five years (3) TKO would also work with Sheikh to promote several super-fights (such as Canelo v Crawford) each year. The league fights and super-fights would be separate businesses Sela owns 60% of Zuffa Boxing and TKO owns 40%. UFC president and CEO Dana White has been charged with overseeing Zuffa Boxing. “I live in my own little bubble,” White told Brian Campbell of CBS Sports. “I’m gonna do my own thing. I’m not worried about what any of those [other promoters] are doing. Those guys don’t think big enough. Those guys all think small. They don’t think the way that I...
Plus: two sets of fathers and sons involved in one match, more record wins and losses and ‘sixes and sevens’ Mail us with your questions and answers “Twelve of the 18 Bundesliga teams have a negative goal difference,” notes Damian Cerase. “I suppose this is down to Bayern handing out weekly drubbings , given that their GD is +57 after only 18 games. What’s the greatest disparity in a full season b...
Plus: two sets of fathers and sons involved in one match, more record wins and losses and ‘sixes and sevens’ Mail us with your questions and answers “Twelve of the 18 Bundesliga teams have a negative goal difference,” notes Damian Cerase. “I suppose this is down to Bayern handing out weekly drubbings , given that their GD is +57 after only 18 games. What’s the greatest disparity in a full season between the number of teams registering positive or negative GDs?” “At the time of writing in the Bundesliga , all teams haven’t quite played the same number of games but nevertheless 66.6% of the teams have a negative goal difference,” begins Chris Roe. “For a complete season, the highest percentage in the English league system is from tier two in 2005-06 when 17 of the 24 teams (70.83%) had a negative goal difference; no doubt this was in part due to champions Reading , who had a +67 goal difference for the season. This example is narrowly ahead of two Premier League seasons (1998-99 and 2017-18) when six of the 14 (or 70%) had negative GD at the end of the season. Continue reading...
Remember the summer of 2008? That was when Pep Guardiola was appointed as first-team coach at Barcelona, Jürgen Klopp arrived at Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea gambled on a certain Luiz Felipe Scolari. Since then the west London club have had 12 different permanent managers. Qarabag, who Liverpool play in the Champions League on Wednesday, have had one: Gurban Gurbanov, also known as the Azeri Sir ...
Remember the summer of 2008? That was when Pep Guardiola was appointed as first-team coach at Barcelona, Jürgen Klopp arrived at Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea gambled on a certain Luiz Felipe Scolari. Since then the west London club have had 12 different permanent managers. Qarabag, who Liverpool play in the Champions League on Wednesday, have had one: Gurban Gurbanov, also known as the Azeri Sir Alex Ferguson. Gurbanov has become one of the longest serving elite coaches in the world and he has built a remarkable empire, turning the club into a force to be reckoned with in European competitions. This season is destined to be their best. As Qarabag visit Anfield on the last matchday of the league phase of the Champions League, they have a very good chance of qualifying for the next phase. They are 18th on 10 points, one ahead of European powerhouses such as Marseille, Bayer Leverkusen and PSV Eindhoven. Even a defeat may be enough to stay in the playoff places. View image in fullscreen Gurban Gurbanov has been Qarabag’s head coach for almost 18 years, Photograph: Insidefoto/Alamy The game on Wednesday will be Qarabag’s 204th in Europe and Gurbanov has been in charge of 190 of them. That is mainly due to the fact that before his arrival they were a rather modest club, even by Azeri standards. In fact, his predecessor, Rasim Kara, left a few days before the start of the 2008-09 season after receiving a better offer from Khazar Lankaran, who were considered to be a much stronger side. Gurbanov was earmarked as an urgent replacement, but expectations were low. “He was a young coach, and local coaches didn’t get a lot of credit those days, anyway. He started from scratch and wasn’t supposed to survive in the job,” Maksim Medvedev, who played for Qarabag between 2006 and 2024, says. “But we soon realised that he is a superb coach. We won the cup in his first season, and then managed to beat Rosenborg in the Europa League qualifying round. That’s when the whole adventure st...
Such is the surfeit of TV offered up to us in the streaming age that there are whole shows featuring A-list actors that only two of your friends have heard of and even fewer are watching. A case in point: Apple’s Shrinking, a dramedy from the creator of Scrubs and Ted Lasso about a grieving therapist who, rather than merely nodding and looking sad, decides to get brutally honest with his patients....
Such is the surfeit of TV offered up to us in the streaming age that there are whole shows featuring A-list actors that only two of your friends have heard of and even fewer are watching. A case in point: Apple’s Shrinking, a dramedy from the creator of Scrubs and Ted Lasso about a grieving therapist who, rather than merely nodding and looking sad, decides to get brutally honest with his patients. Now in its third season, its brightest star remains Harrison Ford, who plays our protagonist Jimmy’s (Jason Segel) grouchy but good-hearted boss. It’s probably for the best that it isn’t in the big leagues: while Shrinking has its moments of greatness, the series is – by and large – an unapologetically soapy confection best enjoyed, like most sweet things, in moderation. As season three begins, we are reunited with therapist Jimmy (a man who previously described himself as a sufferer of “resting dead wife face”), mentor Paul (Ford) and a cast of slightly-too-close friends, family members, patients and neighbours. Having spent the final moments of season two forgiving the drunk driver who killed his wife, Jimmy seems set to begin rebuilding his life in earnest. The writers, however, have other plans: I’m all for restorative justice, but the back-slapping hangouts with drunk-driver Louis (Brett Goldstein) are pretty weird, even for a character as needy as Jimmy. Meanwhile, Paul’s Parkinson’s symptoms are worsening, leading the mentor to become the mentee (“If you see me sinking,” he commands Jimmy, “pull me up”). Change is in the air, be it via Paul’s health issues, or Jimmy facing the prospect of an empty nest now that daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) is off to college (it’s not totally empty, of course, with former patient and military vet Sean, played by Luke Tennie, still living in his pool house). In case we didn’t totally get the point, Segel spells it out for us in the series opener: “Everyone around me seems to be so full of joy lately … I’m still getting knocked on m...
Our children’s feelings are not for sale, and nor are they to be manipulated. So said Emmanuel Macron this week, after French lawmakers voted to ban under-15s from social media. Admittedly, he then repeated these sentiments in a post on X, in the time-honoured manner of parents solemnly lecturing children to do as we say, not as we do. Yet Macron is not wrong. The backlash building up against soci...
Our children’s feelings are not for sale, and nor are they to be manipulated. So said Emmanuel Macron this week, after French lawmakers voted to ban under-15s from social media. Admittedly, he then repeated these sentiments in a post on X, in the time-honoured manner of parents solemnly lecturing children to do as we say, not as we do. Yet Macron is not wrong. The backlash building up against social media now is unmistakable, as guilt over all those hours wasted scrolling meets growing alarm at the ugly and dystopian world big tech has helped create. Only last week the Labour MP Jess Asato, a government adviser on violence against women, described how an X user had created an AI-generated video of her being chloroformed and prepared for rape. Who wants their 14-year-old daughter hanging out somewhere that happens? Though teens mostly prefer TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat to X, it’s the grim excesses of the platform under Elon Musk that have shaken many adults out of complacency. Parents are beguiled by tales of Australian kids rediscovering bike rides and board games, after under-16s were banned from social media just in time for the antipodean summer. Teachers sick of dealing with the fallout from adolescent social media beef, or the inevitable after-effects of kids staying up all night on their phones, want action. The surest sign of which way Labour winds are blowing, meanwhile, is that the health secretary, Wes Streeting, recently invited the pro-ban campaigning author Jonathan Haidt in to address officials, while the thwarted leadership hopeful Andy Burnham suggests a crackdown makes sense to him. Yet Downing Street has hesitated, leaving Kemi Badenoch to take advantage, for once, of an open goal. The Conservatives have amended the children’s wellbeing and schools bill going through the House of Lords in order to put the idea of a ban on the table, and will use an opposition day debate this Wednesday to hammer their point home, somewhat awkwardly for Labour MPs...
After nearly two decades of efforts, the European Union and India have formally concluded negotiations in New Delhi for a free-trade deal, shoring up the 27-member bloc’s ambitions to diversify trade ties while navigating tariff pressure from Washington and a ballooning deficit with Beijing. The agreement, announced on Tuesday and praised by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen as “t...
After nearly two decades of efforts, the European Union and India have formally concluded negotiations in New Delhi for a free-trade deal, shoring up the 27-member bloc’s ambitions to diversify trade ties while navigating tariff pressure from Washington and a ballooning deficit with Beijing. The agreement, announced on Tuesday and praised by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen as “the mother of all trade deals”, is poised to reduce or eliminate tariffs on 96.6 per cent of the EU’s exports to India, by value. Pending ratification, the deal could still take months to be finalised and implemented. Advertisement It is expected to double the bloc’s goods exports – valued at €48.8 billion (US$58.5 billion) in 2024 – to the world’s most populous country by 2032, according to a statement from the European Commission. European automotives, many of which have struggled to grow and profit in China , need a new market, and India could be it. Previously, selling cars there was more difficult due to a 110 per cent import tax. This new trade deal would drop that tax to 10 per cent, with an import quota of 250,000 vehicles per year. Advertisement The EU’s top three exports to India – machinery, aircraft and medical equipment – would largely see their tariffs cut to zero, the commission added.
First they came for the office perks. Next they came for remote flexibility. Now Fortune 500 CEOs are exerting their upper hand by issuing employees new ultimatums: Show us your results—or else. In early January, in the wake of massive layoffs, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy asked corporate workers to submit three to five accomplishments that “show the impact of your work,” as part of a revamped performanc...
First they came for the office perks. Next they came for remote flexibility. Now Fortune 500 CEOs are exerting their upper hand by issuing employees new ultimatums: Show us your results—or else. In early January, in the wake of massive layoffs, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy asked corporate workers to submit three to five accomplishments that “show the impact of your work,” as part of a revamped performance review system that helps determine future pay. It’s reportedly a departure from previous review processes that posed softball questions about employees’ strengths and interests and included prompts such as, “When you’re at your best, how do you contribute?” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is putting more emphasis on rewarding outstanding performers too as part of a tightened review system that’s intended to slot employees into bonus bands and provide “more frequent feedback and recognition in a more efficient way,” a spokesperson told Fortune. And finally, Citi CEO Jane Fraser warned employees that they are “not graded on effort” but “judged on our results” and urged them to adopt a more commercial mindset as the bank cut about 1,000 positions. To be sure, corporate America does not run on goodwill and how hard workers try. Employers have always expected their workers to produce results. But as AI floods the workplace with productivity metrics, the strongly-worded memos signal a reset that fully strips out the touchy-feely, more accommodating management style of the COVID era to focus on requiring workers to get stuff done. The no-nonsense approach reflects the pressure CEOs are under to grow their bottom line in a period when a series of X-factors—geopolitics, AI, evolving markets, and an unpredictable White House—can disrupt even the best-laid plans. Essentially, CEOs are passing the pressure and uncertainty that they’re feeling along to employees further down the corporate ladder. The new approach to performance assessment isn’t all stick—there are carrots too. Companies are ...
Intel's $42 Floor: Why Smart Money Is Buying The 'Supply Shortage' Panic Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) just sparked panic—and then flashed a rare insider buy signal. INTC is down roughly 12% over the past week after management flagged weak guidance and warned of a supply shortage. In chip land, supply uncertainty kills the narrative fast. Investors hate uncertainty in fabs, inventory, and production ti...
Intel's $42 Floor: Why Smart Money Is Buying The 'Supply Shortage' Panic Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) just sparked panic—and then flashed a rare insider buy signal. INTC is down roughly 12% over the past week after management flagged weak guidance and warned of a supply shortage. In chip land, supply uncertainty kills the narrative fast. Investors hate uncertainty in fabs, inventory, and production timelines. But as Wall Street was selling, Intel's CFO David Zinsner was buying. Zinsner purchased 5,882 INTC stock for about $250,000 at an average price near $42, marking Intel's first insider buy since 2024. In a company notorious for insider silence, that matters. The $42 Signal CFO buys are not meme-stock pumps. They're often boring, symbolic—and occasionally telling. Zinsner stepping in at $42 doesn't scream "multi-bagger," but it does suggest management views this level as defensible, not catastrophic. Intel has been punished for execution risk, AI irrelevance fears, and capital intensity. The supply warning added fuel. But insider buys during uncertainty often mark sentiment lows, not peaks. The Nvidia Plot Twist Adding to the narrative reset: Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is collaborating with Intel on next-gen ‘Feynman’ chip architecture targeted for 2028. That doesn't make Intel an AI leader overnight, but it reinforces a critical point—Intel still matters in the AI supply chain, especially in manufacturing and advanced packaging. In the AI era, relevance is binary. Nvidia doesn't collaborate with irrelevant players. Contrarian Setup Or Value Trap? Intel remains a capital-heavy turnaround story with real execution risk. But at $42, the stock now has three things investors watch closely: capitulation, insider buying, and strategic relevance. That doesn't guarantee a bottom. But it's the first credible sign that smart money sees panic—not permanence—in Intel's latest stumble. Image: Shutterstock