At a time when we have precise statistics on tennis players' shots, data on the number of steps taken by a rugby or football player during a match, and the ability to run with GPS, everyone is becoming aware of how the connected world and technology are encroaching on our daily lives. This raises the question of the place, role and influence of mathematics in sport.
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Classifying sports
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Yet the link between sport and mathematics was not born of technology: it dates back to the Greeks. Pythagoras, a mathematician well known to readers of Tangente, was also an athlete: he won every boxing event he entered at the Olympic Games. Thales, meanwhile, is said to have died while watching a sporting contest. Even then, achieving harmony between body and mind was considered important. To describe an idiot, the Greeks would say: "He can neither read nor swim."
