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Technology Ruining Olympics

posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 18 2014, @03:30PM   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: 4, Insightful) by nukkel on Tuesday February 18 2014, @03:35PM

    by nukkel (168) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @03:35PM (#1829)

    As a scientist, you stand on the shoulders of giants.

    As an athlete, you need to outdo all the giants that came before you.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by KritonK on Tuesday February 18 2014, @03:49PM

    by KritonK (465) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @03:49PM (#1846)

    Actually, as an athlete, you need only outdo the athletes with whom you are competing. There is no need to break any record, which is apparently all that seems to matter these days.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:38PM (#1888)

    betabeta

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by mindriot on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:47PM

    by mindriot (928) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:47PM (#1898)

    That's why I hope that as we slowly converge towards the human physical limit in various sports disciplines, we will learn to switch to "Year's Best"/"Decade Best" type records instead of drooling at all-time World Records.

    --
    soylent_uid=$(echo $slash_uid|cut -c1,3,5)

  • (Score: 1) by mojo chan on Tuesday February 18 2014, @07:44PM

    by mojo chan (266) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @07:44PM (#2027)

    Athletes stand on the shoulders of giants even more so. Their genes are the product of untold thousands of generations before them. The techniques they use, the training they do and the equipment they have was all developed by those who came before them. That's why people can still break records in things like foot races where if it were simply down to hard work the record would have been set decades ago and never touched. As training and equipment (shoes) improve humans become capable of running faster.

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    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)