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Technology Ruining Olympics

posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 18 2014, @07:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-now-for-sports dept.

CoolHand writes:

"Sci-Tech Today talks about the role of technology in the Olympics from a unique perspective:

Every advance in the ever-accelerating juggernaut of sports technology threatens to widen the divide between Olympic haves and have-nots. Well-sponsored teams and rich governments pay top-end scientists and engineers to shape their skis, perfect their skates, tighten their suits, measure their gravitational pull.

I'm no luddite, but this seems to make these sports more about who can afford the best tech, and less about the true spirit of the games: bringing the best athletes from all countries together to compete. How can it be about the athletes, when some of the best athletes may never win due to lack of funding/tech?"

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyper on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:54PM

    by Hyper (1525) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:54PM (#1952) Journal

    It is time for a new olympics where anyone can compete with minimal restrictions for the sole purpose of breaking records at any cost with any means.

    Go the performance enhancing drugs. Bring on the shark suits. Let us see how far humanity can excel.

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  • (Score: 1) by Appalbarry on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:41AM

    by Appalbarry (66) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:41AM (#2129) Journal

    I've said this for a very long time. Accept the fact that virtually everyone in the O-games is juiced up and give them free rein.

    I read a great article a few years ago about the Tour de France and doping. [theguardian.com] To make a long and fascinating story short, some form of drug use has been part of bike racing for a century at least, beginning with riders knocking back brandy while riding, then stuff like benzedrine, then onwards to steroids and blood doping.

    Tales of riders seeking chemical assistance began to make the news in the 1920s when brothers Francis and Henri Pélissier (the 1923 Tour winner) boasted to a journalist that they had "cocaine to go in our eyes, chloroform for our gums, and do you want to see the pills? We keep going on dynamite. In the evenings we dance around our rooms instead of sleeping."