Sports equipment can make a big difference in how well an athlete performs, especially in a racing event such as running, swimming, or biking. The drive to create better equipment can lead to technological innovation and get rid of stagnation in world records. However, better shoes, swimsuits, or bikes can give one competitor an edge, leading to an unfair competition in the case that some athletes have better equipment than others. This could also lead to past legends’ legacies getting diminished, because they didn’t have access to the newest equipment. All these pros and cons lead to the main question of whether cutting-edge sports equipment should be allowed in major athletic competitions. I believe there should be restrictions on sports equipment, such as size or weight, so that technology keeps growing but no one piece of equipment completely dominates the others.
There are potential upsides of not setting limits on sports equipment. It would allow researchers to push humans to their theoretical best, and companies would be incentivized to keep innovating in order to have the world record athlete using their product. This would mean technology would not only become better, but the same quality equipment would be able to be bought for cheaper. Another advantage of letting sports equipment develop constantly would be the much more frequent records broken. As technology got better, people would achieve faster and faster times, making sports like running, swimming, and biking more interesting. Personally, I would be much more likely to watch a sport if I had a higher chance of witnessing the fastest time ever, and it would feel amazing if I saw it happen live.
On the other hand, constant improvement could cause the records of previous legends to feel less significant, and it would be hard to tell how good someone was, because they would have just had worse equipment. If Usain Bolt’s record was broken easily by many people with better shoes, people wouldn’t realize how legendary Usain Bolt was, and he might’ve felt like he worked so hard for nothing. It could cause some people to be less motivated, because why train so much and dedicate your life to running if someone with better shoes is going to come along and beat your record anyways? Another downside of cutting-edge sports equipment would be the cost. Buying the most high-tech equipment would give athletes an advantage, but it would also cost a lot of money. And in sports, which many people see as a gateway to escape poverty, gatekeeping the equipment and not allowing people with less money to become elite would shut out a huge population of athletes.
I think the best decision for sporting organizations would be to set limitations on sports equipment that still allow for innovation. For example, World Athletics, the governing body for track and field, set limitations of 20-40 mm as the maximum shoe heel height, depending on the running event (Iskandar). While this creates a restriction, it still allows for innovation by making the goal to make the existing soles more springy, rather than just adding onto the soles. However, it could get harder to set and enforce these limitations in the future. A technology being developed called tDCS could manipulate an athlete’s brain into feeling less fatigued (Witts). In this case, I think this technology should just be banned, as it seems to me like it defeats the purpose of even training endurance and willpower. In general, I think if a technology is on the edge of what seems allowable, it shouldn’t be allowed for major competitions, in order to preserve the nature and accessibility of the sport.
Works Cited
Iskandar, Bree. "Is Technology in the Olympics a Form of Doping or a Reality of
Modern Sport?" Scientific American, 25 July 2024,
www.scientificamerican.com/article/
is-technology-in-the-olympics-a-form-of-doping-or-a-reality-of-modern-sport/.
Accessed 11 Dec. 2025.
Witts, James. "Technological Doping: The Science of Why Nike Alphaflys Were
Banned from the Tokyo Olympics." BBC Science Focus, 4 Sept. 2021,
www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/nike-alphafly-banned-technological-doping.
Accessed 11 Dec. 2025.
This is a very interesting article! I agree with you that better records could diminish previous legacies, but I think this still happens anyway, with the development of new strategies and techniques. My view is likely biased by soccer, in which skill is not highly affected by the equipment you have access to, mainly cleats. I think that in sports like running where spikes very directly affect your speed, limitations would be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Finding the middle ground would probably be important. As a runner myself I know the significant impact quality shoes can make on your performance in a race. One thing I think is important to factor are injuries. I think shoes/equipment that reduce injury rate should be kept for all sports alike.
ReplyDeleteI agree that sports technology should keep a hard limit with no foreseeable workarounds. I like how you looked at it from a wide view, in that people use sports to escape poverty, like LeBron, Usain Bolt, and Maradona. I think that the rules set in place would allow for the production of higher quality sports gear for cheaper, instead of better sports gear that is more expensive at a lower quality.
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