Sports have come up to a new frontier in fairness: technology.
Sports, when you get down to it, hinge on fairness. It’s the reason that baseball players accused of using performance enhancing drugs (PED) were called before Congress in 2005 to confront accusations of steroid use.
And it’s the reason #deflategate was on every football-lovers’ Twitter feed for weeks due to the New England Patriots alleged sabotage of the game ball during the NFL playoffs. Breach the rules of fairness, and it cheapens the sport.
While we’ve known about PEDs for a long time, and manipulating the game ball is classic debauchery, technology poses a new set of challenges.
In this brave new world, where many debate the value of in-depth algorithms assigning complicated stats to the minutest of details which can lead to improvement (see: Moneyball), at least they don’t directly alter a player’s performance on the court. But what about tech-altered equipment that does?
For instance, these new types of curling broomheads. The broom in question is not a Harry Potter Nimbus 2000, but it does have granulated fibre on it that allows the rock to be directed along the ice with much more precision.
Cue backlash. The axis on which peaceful Canadian society finds itself precariously perched is absolutely reliant on the honour of curlers. We lose that, we lose Canada.
Perhaps a little overdramatic, but curlers are up in arms over this, literally.
Mary-Anne Arsenault, a former world champion, told CBC recently that fist fights have broken out over the usage of these nefarious sweepers.
But who knows what techies will dream up next?
As our society progresses, there will be other places that tech confronts sporting equality. Whether it’s special fabric swimsuit that gives a swimmer a split-second edge, or hockey goalie pads that are significantly lighter than the competitors, sports are cheapened when it’s the equipment, not the player’s ability, that decides the outcome.
Curling broomheads are just the tip of the iceberg. Recall Oscar Pistorius, before his imprisonment, wanted to cross over from the Paralympics into the Olympics, but was denied entry.
After all, due to his legs being amputated when he was 11 months old he sprints on J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called “Flex-Foot Cheetah” which were developed by a biomedical engineer – which is to say there might be an unfair advantage contained within those metal springs.
The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) made the right decision by amending their rules to ban “any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device.”
The amendment was later overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which is to the detriment of competitive racing.
Getting back to the broom heads, the World Curling Federation has extended a ban on controversial broom heads to all events for the 2015-16 season, so at least for now, technology won’t be changing the game.