Arm wrestling with technology
In 2012, South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, with his prosthetic limbs, became the first double leg amputee to participate and compete with able bodied athletes in the Olympics. What was more remarkable is that he proceeded to win two gold and one silver medal. However, this wasn’t without controversy because of claims that his artificial limbs gave him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet.
Shape shifting running shoes, optical heart rate sensor, galvanic skin response monitor and 3-axis accelerometre are already becoming mainstream with both amateur sports enthusiasts and professional sportspersons and are no more a novelty. Combined with insights gained through data analysis on performance and quality of sleep, athletes can track everything from calories burned to sleep quality to improve their training, workouts and overall well-being.
Thomas Frey, a futurist, comments that while there is tremendous improvement being made to sporting equipment, protective gear, and training simulators, we are seeing many instances where technology goes too far. These include everything from performance enhancing equipment to genetically reengineering the athletes themselves.
He further adds that if computers can win at chess and Jeopardy, then we might soon witness similar contests between robots and basketball players, driverless cars and NASCAR drivers, or robots and golf champions. More importantly, he wonders if we run the risk of automating these sports out of human competence.
Our perspective
Among competing nations, sports are considered as the hardest form of soft power and the softest form of hard power. Technology in sports perhaps began with using safety equipment to improve training, competitive surroundings and enhance overall athletic performance.
Improvement in communication technologies helped to make sporting events pervasive bringing them to homes worldwide and further technological adoption are helping in athletic health and performance analysis.
Sports has also emerged as a lucrative career option since the second half of last century and some of the top sportsmen today earn hundreds of millions each year from prize money and sponsorship. However, initiation into sports has to be done in early age so that one has had enough practice and is ready for competitive sports, which usually starts by age 14-15. Also, this is an industry of a few superstars who take home the maximum monetary gains leaving little or nothing for second and third tier sportsmen.
The use of modern technologies for training, analysis and specialised equipment in sports costs a lot of money and this could mean that affordability to compete is increasingly getting limited to the rich and privileged only. There are a few sports which are referred to as ‘sports for the rich’, and rising use of sporting technologies could lead to ‘all sports only for the rich’.
Gazing through the crystal ball
- The future of professional sports remains bright but, for most sports, achieving national title by 15-16 years of age is critical. Success in sports has always been very exclusive and will only get more competitive. Think twice about a professional career for children in sports as it requires a lot of family commitment and support – emotionally, financially, time and attention.
- Due to the digital media explosion, a career in sports is very lucrative even beyond participation. Sports event management – online or real – are interesting and very lucrative career options.
- Another lucrative career is sports/health training and coaching.
- Given the decades of deficit in sports and fitness education and promotion, there will decent employment and micro-entrepreneurship opportunities in fitness training to an ever increasing mass of longer-living people.
