The Week Junior - Science + Nature
FOR OR AGAINST
From video replays to high-tech shoes, technology is changing the game.
Has technology ruined sport? This is your chance to have your say on a hot topic.
With the men’s football European Championships, and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, people around the world have been enjoying a summer of sport. Many people grumble, however, that technology has changed sport beyond all recognition. Whether it’s video replays in football or high-tech running shoes in athletics, innovations are rewriting the rules and ripping up the record books. For some, these thrilling advances represent the natural evolution of sport. For others, they are making a mockery of competition and fair play.
In the run-up to this summer’s Olympics, one of the talking points has been the Nike Air Zoom Victory running shoes, also known as “super spikes”. These shoes have been designed to help athletes run further and faster. They follow hot on the heels of another controversial shoe, the Nike Zoomx Vaporfly, which contained springy carbon-fibre plates inside a thick layer of special foam. On 31 January 2020, World Athletics (the global governing body for athletics) banned them for giving an unfair and unnatural advantage. Runners wearing both of these types of new shoe beat their personal bests and broke records.
Something similar happened before in swimming, when a high-tech swimsuit led to more than 130 world records being broken in just 17 months. In response, the international governing body for swimming banned the suits. In golf, a type of ball called Polara was banned in 1981 for making the game too easy. It had certain patterns on its surface that allowed it to travel further when hit and stopped it swerving so much in the air. This helped less skilled players in particular, and people complained it took away the dedication required to become a top golfer.
Rather than making sport about hard work or endurance, technology turns it into a competition over who has the best gadgets. Some say that this might end in a situation where it’s not possible to break records without high-tech equipment.
Not everyone agrees with this view, however. In an article for Canada Running magazine, athlete Madeleine Kelly argues that progress is part of the evolution of sport. “The world keeps on turning, and running must turn with it,” she writes. Furthermore, technology helps those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to compete. Paralympians have benefited greatly from modern inventions. Dr Ian Brittain, an assistant professor at Coventry University in England who studies disabilities and the Paralympics, said, “Some athletes simply wouldn’t be able to take part in sport without technology.” One example is the improvements of prosthetic (artificial) legs and other body parts. However, at the same time, he says, “The very cost of that technology actually makes it a barrier to competition.” Richer nations are able to afford the best gear for their athletes, which leads to an uneven playing field.
New innovations don’t just affect players but spectators too. In football, the biggest controversy has been the introduction of video assistant referees (VAR). VAR are match officials who watch video footage of incidents during a game and help the referee make decisions. In some cases, the replay may show that a player has broken a rule while scoring a goal, meaning the goal won’t count. For fans, this has changed the experience of watching a football match. Some say they can’t celebrate goals until the VAR has had a look, which takes the fun out of the game. However, before the introduction of VAR, there were complaints about referees missing things and calls for them to watch video replays.
So technology, much like sport itself, has its winners and losers, but what do you think? Is it ruining the competition we all know and love? Or just taking it in a thrilling new direction?