Matthew Syed

Talk about a diverse career.

These days Matthew Syed is best known for his work as a journalist, author and broadcaster, but before that he was England’s top table tennis player for almost a decade.

It led to him competing for Great Britain at the Olympics, and becoming a three-time Commonwealth Games champion.

Since then he’s gone on to write two acclaimed sports books on the science of high performance. Bounce, published in 2010, has been described as ‘one of the most intelligent and thought-provoking books about sport ever written’ and Black Box Thinking, published in 2015, became a UK bestseller.

Matthew’s a columnist for The Times and is a regular contributor to radio and TV, hosting the popular Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy podcast alongside cricket legend Freddie Flintoff and former footballer Robbie Savage.

Matthew was awarded an honorary doctorate in Liberal Arts in 2016.