Why do humans play sports? We do not
need sports to survive, and even if we did, why would we invite another team
and compete? Bernard Suits stated in the 1970s that a sport is a voluntary
attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.
Competition is part of what makes us
human. We strive to be better, stronger and faster. The Olympic motto “Citius,
Altius, Fortius” literally means “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. We set rules,
invent sports, arrange contests, and we yearn to win. Science and technology
are the tools we use to improve our performance. Sports and technology have
been linked since the very first Olympic games more than 2000 years ago.
Over the ages, science and technology
have helped athletes fulfill this motto to a great extent. For instance, the
winner of the 2012 Olympic marathon ran two hours and eight minutes, which
beats the winner of the 1904 Olympic marathon by an hour and a half. In the 100-meter
race, the time taken by sprinter Usain
Bolt beats that of 1936 world record holder Jesse Owens; augmented reality
shows that when Usain Bolt crosses the line, Jesse Owens would still have 14
feet to go. In 1954, Sir Roger Bannister became the first man to run under four
minutes in the mile – college students do that every year nowadays. The record
set for the longest distance cycled (30.7 miles) by Eddy Merckx was broken in 1996,
and set at 35.03 miles. All of these feats were achieved through science and
technology.
The introduction of carbon fiber
tennis rackets, aerodynamic bikes, faster skis, lighter shoes, the flip-turn
and full-body and low-friction sportswear, among various other transitions,
have made a huge difference in all kinds of sports.
Moreover, athletes have gotten savvy
about performance enhancing drugs and train more intelligently. The gene pool
within competitive sports have changed. In contrast to the idea prevailing in
the 20th century that the average body type was the best for all
athletic endeavors, highly specialized bodies are preferred for certain
athletic clichés (ectomorphs, endomorphs and mesomorphs), as a result of which
a form of artificial selection takes place.
Science plays the major role here;
the selection of the best candidate from the gene pool, specialized diet and
nutrition, intelligent training and finally, by adding modern sports equipment and
gear into the mix, science has been able to ensure better results and progress
for athletes and the sporting community.
No comments:
Post a Comment