Technology has a transformative role in sports. As new materials such as titanium alloys and carbon composites are developed, early adopters are often found in athletics. This can beneficial as well as controversial.
Pole vaulting, where world record heights have nearly tripled, presents a clear depiction of how technology changes a sport (for instance, see this Nature Materials commentary, or this Illumin article).
Pole vaulting, like most sports, started using basic, natural materials. Over time the poles have transitioned from solid wood to bamboo, then metal and finally, composites.
Composites offer a competitive advantage because they can be customized depending on the weave, composition and layering of the reinforcement phase. The length of the pole, stiffness and other parameters can be customized for each athlete to maximize their performance.
Indeed, composites are becoming a favorite in many sports such as skiing, bob sled, etc. because of their high strength-to-weight ratio and customizable properties.
Due to loose regulation in pole vaulting, athletes can choose just about any pole configuration (weight, length, diameter, etc.) so long as it is smooth. Other professional sports (baseball, basketball and football included) and many Olympic sports have restricted the equipment specifications to help normalize competition.
This sort of restriction was clearly demonstrated after the 2012 Summer Olympics when the LZR Racer suit was banned. The emergence of new technologies in the coming Olympics is likely to stir up controversy as well, such as with speed skating’s newest advancement, an advance reminiscent of the LZR.
The problem is that regulations regarding technology are often reactionary. The records are set before it is illegal.
Think if steroids were legalized for a while. All the new records would be attributed to that performance enhancement, but is the relentless progress of human achievement in sport attributable to “technology doping,” or is it truly human improvement?
Keep in mind that the use of advanced materials does not always produce an equal improvement, however, as found with composite baseball bats.
Sport’s governing bodies have been working to limit the reliance on technology for performance, but before we go on claiming people should be skiing downhill naked with two-by-fours tied to their feet, there are some very positive aspects to technology in sports.
For instance, after materials and designs are vetted on the playing field, they often make their way in one form or another into commercial use. Other fields such as medical, structural and safety-related applications can benefit from the experience that athletics has recorded on reliability under extreme circumstances.
Sport is big business, and that investment can even pay off for those of us who are more likely to appear on a couch than a podium during the Olympic Games.
Let there be no doubt. As you see athletic performance reach new levels, the athletes are ultimately responsible. In many cases, however, for each athlete standing on the podium, there is a team of engineers standing right behind them.
Images courtesy of Illumin (upper), Nordic Sport (lower) and russiatrek.org (thumb).