Not by the Playbook

This week we take a tour of England highlighting the stories and legends from every part of "This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." to borrow a quote from William Shakespeare!
We start in the deep South West and the port city of Plymouth, birthplace of Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth diving champion Tom Daley. The poster boy of the London 2012 games; his debut came four years earlier in Beijing aged just fourteen. Now retired he lives in Los Angeles - very handy to watch the next games - with his husband and two children. Since hanging up his trunks Tom has become famous for knitting. In fact once he starts talking about it, it's rather difficult to get him talking about anything else!
To the Midlands, represented by former Premier League footballer Dion Dublin. Aside from playing for Manchester United, Coventry City and Aston Villa, Dion also represented England in both defence and attack! Yet for a younger generation he's better known as host of the BBC Television show "Homes Under the Hammer"about buying, renovating and then selling properties purchased at auction. So before talking about the upcoming World Cup, does Dion fell he is more famous for football or for flogging houses on the telly?!
We head to Liverpool in the north of England to meet double World Heptathlon Champion Katrina Johnson Thompson. Heptathletes are a different breed, competing over two days in 7 different events, unsurprisingly it can take a toll on the body and Katrina, or KJT as she's known has had more than her fair share of setbacks. After competing at four Olympics her only medal was a silver in Paris two years ago. So how does she balance the need to push herself to the limit, without taking it too far and causing her body to fail?
it's one of the most iconic achievements in sporting history. In 1954, the late Sir Roger Bannister - a doctor living Oxford - became the first athlete to run a mile in less than four minutes. At the time this was one of the greatest prizes in athletics.

Photo: Tom Daley of Team Great Britain knitting before the Men's 10m Platform Final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (CREDIT: Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Four pioneers from four different sports all of whom trod a path where no path had previously existed. Along the way their determination not only made them legends, but gave all those who came after them the chance to see what success could look like and have something to emulate.
Women's professional sport has, for most, only been a very recent thing. Take women's rugby, the professional era which is just for the very elite in the game only started in 2019 It's meant that for many it has been quite common to juggle an elite sporting career with something a little more regular. Unless you are Shaunagh Brown, because whatever Shaunagh does, she does it with style and swagger... so we suspect our chat about her life on and off the field would have been fun even if she'd been in data entry or a tax consultant! Her career straddled the pro era and she hung up her cleats in 2023 which means she's got the chance to add to an already long and interesting CV
Women's boxing has only been in the Olympics since 2012... And Sweden's Anna Laurell Nash was there! For many years women boxing was at best frowned upon by many parts of society which added a whole level of pressure to those trying to make it succeed. What makes Anna's story so unusual that she was also pursuing a parallel career in academia. In fact now that she has hung up her gloves she holds a senior role at the Stockholm School of Economics, from where she spoke to us about where he love of pugilism started
Hannah Cox is where a pioneering spirit meets running, and exploring, and good old fashioned adventuring! Here's the facts, she recently ran 100 marathons in 100 days in India, a remarkable feet for any athlete, perhaps even more so if they only started running 18 months ago! But for Hannah this is not just a story about physical endurance and mental resilience. It's also about completing a route no one had taken before in modern times and in doing so connecting her present day life with a past she knew very little about
The world of ten pin bowling is not just a popular past time, but has a deeply competitive professional league... Before Kelly Kulick no woman had ever played on the professional tour.
PHOTO: Shaunagh Brown of England is all smiles during an England Red Roses Training Session 2022 (CREDIT: Catherine Ivill - RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

Winning is great, but hard work. Never loosing is much rarer and almost impossible. This week four elite sport stars who didn't just win, they dominated. But how, and what sets them apart, what got them to the top and what made them stay there!
We've had some big numbers on this show when it comes to medals, but no one comes remotely close to Jessica Long. The American swimmer has won an astonishing EIGHTY-FIVE medals at World Championships and Paralympics. FIFTY- FOUR of them gold! Jessica's story is one that has seen her overcome some of the most difficult physical and mental challenges anyone could face, but through them all she continued to dominate her sport. From being the youngest ever Paralympic gold medallist aged just 12, to a potential farewell at her home games in Los Angeles. But now a defining moment away from the pool. She's about to become a mother for the very first time!
American professor of Linguistics Deborah Tannen once wrote "The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate" and that's true of our first guest. Canada's Camryn Rogers is the reigning Olympic and World Hammer throw champion and in a few months time she will defend her Commonwealth title. Her dominance in the sport is in stark contrast to her life growing up with her mother in Canada where times were hard. Really hard. Including a year where they lived in a car. Talking to us from her home in Texas, Camyrn talked about all her successes, and the struggles to get there.
Hamish Kerr is a man who has jumped to the top of the podium and has hung around. But I guess that's the whole point of the high jump. To get as high as possible and hang there long enough to clear the bar. At 6 foot 5 inches tall Hamish could have played basketball but instead focussed on track and field and boy how it's paid off. He is the current Olympic, World and Commonwealth Champion. And there are some indoor titles in there too just for good measure. Chatting from his home in New Zealand he told us about the impact his dominance of the sport is having on his life, and it's goes way beyond the track.
Eddy Merckx dominated cycling. Back in the 1960's and 70's the Belgium won FIVE Tours de France, FIVE Giros d'Italia, and even a Vuelta a España, so it was going to take something quite remarkable to break that dominance. Out of nowhere, that's exactly what happened when he was punched in the face by a spectator during a mountain stage of the Tour De France. The incident marked the start of the decline of a rider so dominant he was nicknamed "The Cannibal". British cyclist Barry Hoban, who passed away in 2025 was riding alongside Merckx and reflected on the day
PHOTO: Jessica Long of the United States competes at the London 2012 Paralympic Games (CREDIT: Clive Rose/Getty Images)

We start in the Arctic Circle, via the Welsh valleys, where Cath Pendleton has always loved swimming. Born from a childhood playing in the rivers of her home town of Merthyr, all through her life, her time in the water has been a sanctuary from the strain of daily life. But what makes Cath's story so remarkable is the type of open water swimming she loves the most is in the coldest waters you can find known as "ice swimming". But not content with simply finding cold rivers in Wales, Cath stepped it up a notch and journeyed to Antarctica, where she made history, almost by accident when she became the first person to swim an ice mile inside the Antarctic Circle!
There are some things that seem just too difficult for humans to achieve, but there's probably nowhere quite like the Paralympics to leave you slack jawed in amazement at people not just doing, but excelling at things you thought impossible. To that end I urge you to seek out footage of snowboarder Noah Elliot and remember he is an above the knee amputee. From his home in Colorado we chatted about life on the slopes and so it seemed only right to start by talking about winning gold in Milan Cortina in March.
There are few professions as seemingly cold as the world of corporate law. Rose Harvey's escape from the daily pressures of this high stakes career was to go running. That sliding doors moment in 2020 certainly raised the temperature taking her into the heat of Olympic competition.
It's probably the most infamous story in Winter Olympic history and in this case one of the protagonists must have had ice running through her veins... In 1994, ice skater Nancy Kerrigan, was clubbed in the knee shortly after a training session. The attack put the Olympic hopes of the American golden girl in jeopardy. To everyone's shock the plot was traced back to one of the support staff of Kerrigan's rivals. Mary Scotvold was Kerrigan's coach.
Photo: Gold medallist Noah Elliott of Team United States poses for a photo with his medal on the podium during the medal ceremony for the Para Snowboard Men's Banked Slalom SB-LL1 on day seven of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games (CREDIT: Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Do you ever find yourself thinking back to the good old days, whenever they were, and thinking about someone you've not seen for a while and wondering "What ever happened to" Well this week we hear from four former elite sport stars who are now enjoying a very different career to the one you knew them for!
First up a chat with an Australian about cricket, not that unusual you might think but this has nothing to do with wickets and wides. Zach Schubert grew up rural Southern Australia with a burning ambition, fuelled in part by seeing his cousin represent Australia playing hockey at the Olympics... But Zach had no idea just how arduous and tortuous his journey to get there would be! But get there he did, when in 2024 in Paris right in front of the Eiffel Tower he stepped on to the sand with team mate Tom Hodges to take part in the Beach volleyball. He tells us about that and now having retired about the cricket and cockroach farm he created.
Growing up Joe Balnton only had one goal, to make it to Baseball's big league. And he did, being drafted in 2003 to the Oakland A's. It started a life long love of California that is still a massive influence in his life, but before he could retire he had World Series to win! And he did that playing for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008. He made history too because after pitching well in Game 4, it's what he did with the bat that he's be forever remembered. For the first time in his MLB career he hit a home run! It was the first home run scored by a pitcher in the World Series since 1974 and no one has repeated the feet since!
Joe continued to play at the highest level picking up a second World Series ring with Kansas City in 2015. Eventually though time was called on his career on the mound but Joe knew exactly what his next adventure would be! That's because he'd been honing his skills ahead of his next career pretty much from the moment he arrived in California over 20 years before... Speaking to us from his vineyard in the Napa Valley, he told us all about winning it all back then and how he's now crafting rather lovely Cabernet Sauvignon.
Josh Navidi is the rugby union player who despite having hung up his cleats, is still playing in front of a packed stadium on match day!? Born in Wales Josh lived his formative years in New Zealand before returning to the UK and eventually pulling on the red shirt of Wales. Despite a very pregnant pause between his first call up and his second cap, Josh had a hugely successful career, winning almost everything that the game has to offer. So how, despite having retired through injury can you still see him perform on matchdays. In fact when he spoke to us he was right outside the nation stadium preparing to wow the crowd again this time with his ability to get the party going with his DJing skills!
Faramarz Assef was one of Iran's most famous pop singers during the time of the Shah, but what most of his fans don't know is that he used to be an international athlete.
Photo: Wales player Josh Navidi faces the media during Wales Media access ahead of their match against the Australian Wallabies at the Hensol Castle on November 9, 2017 in Cardiff, Wales. (CREDIT: Stu Forster/Getty Images)