Technological Doping: Can Scientific Advancements Actually Cheat the Sporting System?
by Melinda Burris Willms
This article picks up where last month’s feature, “Technological Advancements in Sports: Fair Game or Unfair Advantage?” left off. As discussed, the very essence of competitive sports is to challenge one’s self, to search for ways in which you might outwit your opponent by employing wise training mechanisms, taking every known scientific calculation into the equation as you set your personalized training regimen. Sports is also all about ambition: the desire, even need athletes are born with to effectively marshal their natural talents and nurture them to fruition to see how far they can go in the world of competitive sports. It is a powerful, natural element—no, driving force—behind the phenomena of competitive sports as we know them in society today.
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A Basic Question of Fairness
Just as the pursuit of ambition is held in high regard by our society as an indication of a solid work ethic and personal drive to achieve all we possibly can with a positive spirit, our society holds sacred the principle of fairness. This is where conflict enters the conversation about the newest technological breakthroughs which are resulting in the design, development, and utilization of revolutionary uniforms, playing gear, courts, turf, and training equipment. These cutting-edge materials increase fundamental stats including speed, distance, range, endurance, and so much more. In addition, these technological advancements prioritize risk prevention and team health and safety—a development that has been far too slow in coming, particularly in the case of contact and endurance competitors. As stated, these new technologies offer great possibilities, but they are also expensive, leading many to question how accessible such top-of-the-line equipment is for less established players who haven’t yet nailed down a big sponsorship deal. Others question the value of sports competition based less on natural human ability and training and more on high-tech gadgetry.
Example A: The Speedo LZR Racer Swimsuit’s Beijing Olympics’ Backlash
In anticipation of the 2008 Summer Olympics, Speedo collaborated with NASA to create what came to be known as the Speedo LZR Racer Swimsuit (LZR). The suit was created in a special material that enabled oxygen to travel to the muscles more effectively. In addition, the make of the suit more perfectly aligned the swimmer’s body hydrodynamically and, the suit increased the swimmer’s buoyancy by not releasing air. Olympic swimmers wearing the LZR repeatedly not only won medals, but they also set new Olympic swimming records by wide margins. The significant margins of victory held only by those competitors who had participated wearing the LZR led to a furious outcry from former and current athletes, pundits, and the public around the world. Not long after the Beijing Olympics, LZR was banned from competition sponsored by the international governing body of swimming (IGBS).1
Understandably, this action led to concern throughout the sporting world that innovation was being stifled and that this was a harbinger of what would happen in future: whenever a new training material or methodology proved too successful too often in assisting an athlete or team achieve victory, the new technology would incur a similar ban from the powers that be. Some thought this action by the international governing body of swimming to be unjust. It was feared it would have a chilling effect on investment in invention within the various sporting industries.1
Society Must Define Sportsmanship
As a culture, we are now being forced to confront the most complex—some would say most uncomfortable, and yet others would say most pressing political and moral issues of our day on the field. The field (or court), ironically, was a place long considered to be neutral territory, where political and social differences were put aside, and all thoughts focused on (somewhat) lesser team rivalries.
For many years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had been under intensifying pressure to allow transgender male and female athletes to compete as the sex with which they identified. Until January, 2016, IOC regulations required transgender Olympians to have gender reassignment surgery followed by two years of mandatory hormone therapy before they could be considered for competition in the Olympic Games.2
While many see this new policy as a long overdue course correction for the IOC that will make the Olympics more inclusive and allow talented athletes who had been sidelined due to discrimination now take their rightful place on the field, others say this creates an unequal playing field. The argument against allowing non-surgically transgendered athletes to participate in the Olympics is that men and women are simply built differently and have contrasting physical strengths and weaknesses. In essence, opponents argue, an athletic contest between a man and a woman is unfair in principle.
What, ethically, is in global society’s long-term best interest here? Is it to maintain the traditional definition of “a level playing field”, deemed to be one where all contestants are of the same gender and that gender is the one he or she was assigned at birth?
Where do we draw the line between good sports innovation and “technological doping”?
It’s official folks; as with all other aspects of your ever more hectic life, your favorite sport just got a bit more complicated!
Be sure to ENJOY anyway!
References
- Carr, G. Here’s what the 2018 Olympic gender regulations look like. 3 Jul. 2017.
- IOC rules transgender athletes can take part in Olympics without surgery. 25 Jan. 2016.
PDD. Technology in Sport: competitive edge or unfair advantage? 13 Feb. 2012.
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