The brave new world of sports
Zoltan Istvan, writer and lecturer/
Gulf News
Performance enhancement and drugs in the sporting world have a bad rap. Nobody likes a cheater. But what if select sporting events encouraged the use of technological and scientific enhancements? What if some sports were based on human athleticism more akin to Formula One racing, where scientists, engineers and innovation play a significant role in who makes it to the winner’s podium? Futurists and science fiction writers have long imagined Olympic-like games that emphasise radical technology and cyborg ability. An early rendition of this may look like the 2020 Cybathlon, held next May in Switzerland. Founded by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and sometimes called the Cyborg Olympics, it will start before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Contestants — some of whom are missing limbs — compete in races involving everything from powered exoskeletons and brain-computer interfacing to motor-powered leg prostheses. Unlike traditional athletes, who often break world records by hundredths of a second, the difference between the 2016 Cybathlon competitors and those in the upcoming games is likely to be stark: Technology has improved rapidly over the last four years. Computer chips, the foundation of some of the Cybathlon technology, are denser and more functional than they were in 2016. In the Brain-Computer Interface race, for example, brainwave-reading headsets are used to control avatars. The better the chip and its software, the easier the competitor can control his avatar. This same technology is what applies in the real world to quadriplegics that instruct motorised wheelchairs and other devices to move. In the Functional Electronics Stimulation Bike race, paraplegics use intelligent control devices to stimulate paralysed muscles which have electrodes placed on them underneath the skin or directly on top of it. Despite their spinal cord injury which affects their legs, they are still able to control these muscles to pedal a recumbent bike around a circular track and engage in speed competition. Cyborg games may spur the sporting industry and attract new viewers. Last year I saw the inventor Keahi Seymour run jaw-droppingly fast at about 25 miles per hour, wearing 18-inch high custom boots. Over 30 years, Seymour improved his bionic boots to allow him to run nearly the same speed as Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt.