Pro

“Cyborg games may spur the sporting industry and attract new viewers. Last year I saw the inventor Keahi Seymour run jaw-droppingly fast at about 25 miles per hour, wearing 18-inch high custom boots. Over 30 years, Mr. Seymour improved his bionic boots to allow him to run nearly the same speed as the Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt…

When it’s allowed, people don’t find the use of technology in sports controversial. It’s drug use by athletes that causes the greatest contention…

I wonder whether the sporting industry might create some new competitions where — just like technology — performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged. Innovations like the new oxygen-infused injection, which might one day allow humans to hold their breath for 15 to 30 minutes, could allow competitive free divers to reach new depths, showing just how far the human body can go.

Critics will complain that the human body was not designed to compete using enhancements and that doing so violates the code given to us by the ancient Greeks and their first Olympics Games, where arete, or excellence and moral virtue, was cherished. As a longtime competitive athlete, I appreciate the sportsmanship angle; but I also think that in the 21st century we can develop both the drugs and the technology to see humans compete in new sporting events that are even more exciting than their predecessors.”

Sep. 13, 2019