Publish at April 25 2020 Updated January 10 2024
At every major competition, whether Olympic Games or world championships, the media and observers eagerly await the athletes' performances and, above all, the breaking of records, particularly in athletics and swimming where everything is timed. Except that the more the years go by, the fewer records are broken. To the point where the question has been raised for some years now: is this the end of sporting feats?
Our bodies may be well-oiled machines, but they do have their limits. Researchers are trying to establish them. For example, in the summer of 2019, it was discovered that the average human body has an endurance limit. It would not be possible for the body to exceed by 2.5 times the basic metabolic expenditure (BMD) of 4,000 calories for a person of average build. However, studies have shown that Tour de France athletes and marathon runners have a much higher BMD. If this is exceeded by a factor of 2.5, the body consumes itself, no matter how many extra calories are ingested. As a result, the effort becomes unbearable. It can adapt by reducing its needs, but it cannot exceed a certain threshold.
It should be pointed out, however, that this applies to events spread over several weeks. For example, a marathon runner can spend 15 times as much on a given day. Nevertheless, this study clearly shows the limits of the body, and why some people cheat. Others suspect that the man of tomorrow will have to be transformed to achieve spectacular results.
Indeed, proponents of transhumanism are obsessed with the idea of surpassing the limits of the body. This liberal, libertarian approach therefore welcomes the possibility of certain athletes surpassing themselves by becoming real cyborgs. Whether through medication, prostheses or exoskeletons, anything is possible to improve human performance and take it beyond. In Russia, biohackers are already working on body transformation, implanting chips and genetic sequencing to create not only humans who live longer, but some who will be super hercules who can give great effort and recover in no time.
What's interesting, or troubling depending on your point of view, about transhumanism is really the libertarian vision of a situation. For example, the issue of air pollution would not, in their view, be resolved by laws favoring the environment, but rather by the introduction of filtering masks for all citizens. For them, then, the problem with sport is not the record-breaking culture that encourages doping, but the fact that sports organizations insist on "clean efforts" rather than encouraging those who would do anything to improve their performance.
For those who don't subscribe to transhumanism, perhaps it's time to rethink our vision of sport, as posited by a number of speakers on France Culture's "Le Temps du débat" program. No doubt we need to focus more on sporting prowess, as the ancient Greeks did. After all, Leonidas of Rhodes was the only man to be crowned three times out of four Olympiads, and he became a legend without having any records as such. Moreover, in those days, athletes were locked up together for a year to prepare for the Games. This largely eliminated the possibility of doping, as participants were surrounded by their opponents.
Time will tell whether tomorrow's sports stars will be augmented humans or not. Nevertheless, let's not forget that the body has its limits. So it's only natural to introduce rest periods into your physical activities, whether you're an Olympic athlete or just starting out. The same logic also applies to intellectual performance!
Illustration: Pexels from Pixabay
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