Tech doping at the Olympics?
(For technical reasons, we're interrupting your normal 'Letter from Boris' for some tech coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympics.)
For Olympic athletes, every millisecond counts. Shaving off even a portion of a second can make the difference between going home with the gold and going home with nothing.?
As the athletes are busy pumping their muscles and enhancing their bodies to the max, brands spend the time between Olympic games in the lab developing new fabrics and wearables that can enhance speed and optimise an athlete's natural abilities.?
In 2008, swimmers wearing Speedo's LZR Racer hi-tech swimsuits, developed in collaboration with NASA, broke 13 world records as the suit's shark skin-like polyurethane plastic panels reduced skin friction drag by 24%.
The Japanese national swimming team coach said at the time: "If swimmers don’t wear the LZR Racer, they won’t be able to compete," after he broke an existing sponsor agreement to allow his athletes to wear the suit.
By 2010, FINA, the international governing body of swimming, decided the tech had gone too far. The body banned swimsuits that might aid speed, buoyancy, and performance — including the LZR Racer.
Technological doping, or technology that enhances an athlete’s performance beyond their natural capabilities, potentially giving them an unfair advantage over others, became a major debate amongst Olympic officials, brands, and commentators.
This year, one of the biggest debates is whether running shoes have gone beyond this limit. In particular, those with "super spikes."
The question is, where do we draw the line? What can be considered performance enhancing and what is technological doping?
For more tech coverage around the Olympics, check out Paris Olympics app ‘prime target for cybercriminals’ and Grindr disables location features in Olympic village to protect LGBTQ+ athletes by our reporter Si?n Geschwindt.??
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