Is technology a booster for the Olympics or a disguised form of stimulant?

On August 6, Beijing time, the 31st Olympic Games was grandly held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This was the first time that the Olympic Games were held in South America. In the Olympic Games, many sports events have become more fair with the advancement of technology. Similarly, in modern sports events, it is not only a competition of athletes' wisdom, but also a competition of sports equipment.

So what has technology brought to sports? Has it made competitive sports fairer through technological progress, or has it made a sport lose its charm due to technological development?

If something is too hard, it will break. Softness with hardness is the way to go - Fiberglass Rod

In the development of pole vaulting, the material of the pole has always been the subject of research. In the beginning, the pole used was a wooden pole, and at that time pole vaulting had another name, climbing pole high jump. Athletes fixed the wooden pole and climbed over the horizontal bar. The best result at that time was 3.30 meters.

In 1905, Europeans imported bamboo from China, and the bamboo poles they made were more flexible, which led to continuous improvement in sports technology and results. In 1942, C. Womeda of the United States set a record of 4.77 meters for using bamboo poles. Later, people found that bamboo poles were easy to break, so metal poles gradually replaced them. The metal poles were strong, so athletes dared to raise the grip point and speed up the run-up, which improved the world record of pole vaulting again.

In 1961, a new generation of fiberglass poles was introduced, which quickly broke the world record held by metal poles, and athletic performance continued to improve. By 2014, the world record for men's pole vaulting had been broken to 6.16 meters.

Pole vault run-up diagram

From this we can see that through the development of science and technology, people's understanding of materials has become more acute. Using scientific and technological means to create better sports equipment has allowed our sports performance to continue to rise.

The sharpest eyes, never let you miss any point-------Eagle Eye Technology

The scientific name of Hawk-Eye technology is instant replay system. First, the three-dimensional space in the competition venue is divided into measurement units calculated in millimeters with the help of computer calculations. Then, high-speed cameras are used to capture the basic data of the flight trajectory of the tennis ball from different angles at the same time. Then, through computer calculations, these data are generated into a three-dimensional image. Finally, using instant imaging technology, the movement route and landing point of the tennis ball are clearly presented on the large screen.

The referee's naked eye can make some mistakes in judging the boundary ball. Athletes use Hawkeye to judge whether their ball is in the boundary. ITF, ATP, WTA and other major tennis organizations have jointly decided to allow the use of this technology in the game. Although this challenges the authority of the referee to a certain extent, objectively, it guarantees the fairness of competitive sports.

Challenge Eagle Eye Success Chart

Technology brings fairness, but sometimes athletes rely too much on technology and forget the essence of the game.

High-tech carnival is getting further and further away from fairness - shark skin swimsuit

Shark skin is a high-tech swimsuit produced by Speedo that imitates shark skin. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Australian athlete Ian Puso used a shark skin swimsuit on the sports field for the first time. Through this technology, Ian Puso won three gold medals in the Sydney Olympics, making shark skin famous.

The sharkskin swimsuit is made of a fabric with a texture of Skeles and a special water-based fabric. He uses the knowledge of bionics to imitate the irregular wrinkles on the shark's own skin to reduce resistance in the water and increase sensitivity in the water. The Skeles fabric is hollow, which makes the swimsuit lighter and allows you to swim faster because it has the function of resisting water absorption. However, sharkskin is expensive to make, and it takes more than 30 minutes to put on each time, and it can only be used six times, which makes sharkskin a high-tech that only the rich can afford.

In the decade of using shark skin, breaking world records was as easy as cutting vegetables. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, 47 of the medal-winning athletes wore this swimsuit on the podium. After the complete ban on shark skin swimsuits in 2010, the number of swimming world records broken has been very small.

Men's swimming world records as of January 2015

According to FINA statistics, 13 of the current men's swimming world records were created before 2010, and only 5 were broken after 2010. In 2009, FINA was forced to ban shark skin due to public pressure and sports fairness. The 2008 Olympics was also the last carnival of shark skin in the Olympic swimming pool. Basically, all athletes wore shark skin swimsuits.

Who will control the degree behind the Science and Technology Olympics?

There are many high-tech products you don't know about on the sports field. In football, intense physical confrontation will inevitably cause some soft tissue contusions. After a football player falls to the ground, the team doctor will immediately provide emergency treatment for the player. A spray will be used to spray the injured area. The main component of this spray is ethyl chloride, which is gaseous at room temperature and stored in liquid form after pressurization. Spraying ethyl chloride on athletes can immediately make ethyl chloride boil, and a large amount of heat will be taken away through liquid vaporization, so that the injured area can obtain a short-term anesthesia effect. For example, in track and field competitions, sprinters now start the race on electronic starting blocks. Electronic starting blocks can effectively test whether athletes have false starts. Once they exceed the standard value set by them, they will be judged as false starts. This is also high-tech prepared to ensure the fairness of the event.

Science and technology have penetrated into every aspect of human life, and have brought great convenience to people's lives. Relying on scientific and technological progress, it has promoted the rapid development of social productivity, improved people's material and spiritual and cultural living standards, and greatly broadened people's horizons. However, in the relatively pure field of competitive sports, what we hope to see more is the challenge of human beings to their own limits.

When we rely too much on technology to improve our performance, we forget to stimulate our own potential. Everything has two sides. Although the development of technology has brought some negative effects to sports, it is undeniable that technology has brought more innovations to sports events. Through these innovations, athletes' performance has been improved, and relying on technology can also further improve the fairness of the competition. With the help of technology, humans will continue to sprint to the limits of the human body and realize the Olympic slogan of higher, faster and stronger through their own breakthroughs.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.