If para-athletes continue to innovate and set records like this – space technology knees and backflipping wheelchairs – it’ll be their games, not their fully-able-bodied counterparts’, that will be the more inspiring viewing.
(thanks to Boing Boing for the pointers)
I admire athleticism and the results of hard work at any level, but athletic records set through technological innovation do nothing for me. It’s not really that amazing when swimmers in the latest suits from Speedo, or cyclists on the latest bikes from Trek, set up world records.
Too much technology focus makes the Olympics too much like the X-Games for my taste.
The best Olympic sports are the pure sports where little has changed technology-wise since the first Olympics, like running.
Ed, you’ve got a good point. Though, training, nutritional, and everything else athletes do to get their competitive advantage (even independent of equipment) could also be considered a technological innovation.
I suspect running has changed quite dramatically since the first official Olympics in 1896 in form, pace, not to mention shoes.