Listening to the Radio 4 Today Programme yesterday morning I stumbled on an interesting discussion exploring the routes of sporting success between journalist and formet Olympian Matthew Syed and Jonathan Edwards another of the UK's recent Olympic Champions.

The former was providing an overview of his new book Bounce in which he explains how sporting success is not simply attributable to talent but the quality and quantity of training and practice. Though difficuult to dispute and very well written, I do wonder whether this latest text adds anything to the growing range of strong academic and journalistic writing on sport that seeks to show how explanations of success in sport can be transferred to other areas of everyday life, using the framework of competition as the key explanatory tool. It strikes me that the notions of self-belief and religious inspiration need to be considered more, though these are difficult concepts to evaluate.

For anyone curious to read more about the importance and intrigue and value of sport and what we can learn from it I suggest looking at the recent work of the former England and Middlesex cricketer Ed Smith.