I am no athlete, but I did run track in high school, so I do have some curiosity about the running elite. These are genetic winners of course, coupled with training, careful attention to diet, and a level of internal focus certainly deserving of praise.
However, when the sport changes the game through technology to let these elites break previous records, I find we have gone too far. My best events were distance running so cross country was my favorite. Part of the reason I did better at this was my sense of pace … not going out too fast, taking hills at the right pace, and reserving enough but not too much energy for the final few hundred yards.
Now technology makes all that unnecessary … track lights tell you precisely what your pace should be! Look for yourself and read very carefully:
The track of course favors all athletes equally if it is improved, but how fair is that to the athletes whose previous records are now smashed? Why are bathing suits for swimmers being optimized? Sure, you wouldn’t want to have one swimmer with faster suits.
No, there is something more subtle going on here: we are being teased with technology that makes it appear that the latest athletes can break historical records more frequently. The pure and simple reason for this is commercial interest … not sportsmanship.
I am a very serious fisherman and of course have always had a great fish finder for my boat. Over the years, they have improved to now include side-scanning and forward-looking. It is therefore easier to spot fish and even detect bigger ones over smaller ones. When I was a young, the bass tournaments relied more on intuition and insight if you were to consistently catch large bass.
I do understand the trend to make some sports more interesting by picking up the pace, but I wonder where this all leads for running in particular. High tech sneakers that recapture the energy of the ground strike to propel you forward seems to be something that should not be allowed … yet it has crept into the sport.
We used to worry about doping … athletes taking performance enhancing substances. We all heard of the international incidents of this. I guess this is all human nature at its worst. Perhaps it is more about commercial interests at their worst.
My basic question is why this form of cheating has not triggered outrage from the athletes, past and current, and the spectators … except for me .
Good point! I never thought of that aspect of all the improvements technology has made to sports. Guess we will have to recognize the year the athlete made the record against competitors-of-the-day and not the time or other metrics achieved.