HITTING THE LIMIT
Athletes have reached 99 per cent of what is humanly possible
THE Olympic motto is “Faster, Higher, Stronger“, but what if we have reached the limits of the human body?
Some scientists have warned that when it comes to running — from sprints to marathons — the era of breaking records may be coming to an end.
That is, unless the next athletic evolution is artificial and it is doping, rather than human exertion, that breaches the next barriers.
Only one world record was broken at this year’s athletics world championships in London, in the newly-recognised women’s 50km race walk.
And at the 2016 Rio Olympics, just two running world records were bested — South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk in the 400metre men’s event and Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana in the women’s 10,000m.
After the great advances of the 20th century, “the rate of improvement is approaching zero for the majority of athletic trials,” said Marc Andy, a researcher at France’s Institute of Sport Biomedical Research and Epidemiology (IRMES).
In 2007, the institute analysed the history of Olympic records since the modern Games began in 1896 and calculated that athletes have reached 99 per cent of what is possible within the limits of natural human physiology.
The most recent near breakthrough in the gruelling marathon occurred in May when Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge came agonisingly close to sporting immortality, nearly running the first sub two-hour marathon.
He missed the mythical mark by just 25 seconds.
But the race conditions at the Nike-sponsored event were so favourable — Kipchoge ran behind a six-man pacesetting team and was trailed by a time-keeping vehicle on a racing circuit in Monza, Italy — that the time was not recognised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
Fellow Kenyan Dennis Kimetto remains the world record holder for his 2:02:57 run in 2014.
Beyond environment and body shape, “three major physiological parameters come into play in marathons,” Vincent Pialoux, deputy head of Lyon’s Inter-University Laboratory of Human Movement Biology, told AFP.
“Endurance, the ability to create energy using oxygen,” which is measured by a runner’s VO2 max (Maximum Oxygen Uptake Capacity), and “motor efficiency“, the body’s ability to save energy, Pialoux said.
An athlete who combines all the optimal conditions has yet to be found.
Within all these very human constraints, could doping be the evolution the models did not predict?
Should we fear the scenario imagined by Belgian philosopher Jean-Noel Missa, in which genetically enhanced athletes compete for corporations at the 2144 Brussels Olympics?
It’s not time to panic yet, but Xavier Bigard, scientific advisor to the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) said there are several causes for concern, including exercise pills that could be used “increase the effects of training,” and EPO doping, which increases oxygen absorption, allowing athletes to run harder and faster without tiring.
While stem-cell therapy may sound futuristic, it has already been used in some sports to help heal injuries.
It is genetic doping that seems to loom largest over the future of cheating in sports.
Doctors have for years been experimenting with ways to inject synthetic genes into patients, altering an individual’s genome to enhance muscle recovery or stem muscle deterioration, among other benefits.
These techniques could hypothetically give athletes a huge advantage.