Sunday 24 August 2008

The real Olympics: Taking the games into the 21st century

From Wikipedia: “In antiquity normally only young men could participate. The sportsmen usually competed nude. This was due in part to the weather and also because the festival was meant to be a celebration of the achievements of the human body.”

Today no one wins the Olympics without a lot of science going into the gear they wear, what they eat, how they train, etc. An Olympics in the 21st century could be more than people running around, or swimming around, in special outfits that shave times on the margin while the suspicion of doping.

The Olympic motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius”, which is Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger". The following is exploring what that this motto could mean in the 21st century.

The Broiler Olympic
Allow all medicines but only organic parts in the body

The Cyborg Olympic
Allow all implants that can be controlled from the brain and are permanently integrated in the body from the user (should have carried the implants at least a year before competition).

The Strap-on Olympic
Allow the competitors to strap on anything that allow them to increase the performance.

The Machine Olympic
Use machines to allow what humans have done. For those competitions that traditionally included the movement of a human body, like athletics and swimming, the machine should be able to carry a human (definition pending). Others like Archery and Shooting is done as before, but this time with a machine.

In order to get more interesting, and not so specialized participants, and in a celebration of the Olympic spirit this new Olympics will do something that today’s Olympic seem to have forgotten, they will be requested to be able to participate in all parts of the Olympics and the competitor with the best overall score is the true Olympic champion.