Tuesday 16 December 2008

Is it cheating?


After the joy of Sports Personality of The Year (Is this right? Ed) and Rebecca Adlington coming third after her two Olympic-gold-medal-winning swims in the 400m and 800m it seems churlish to start finding fault with sport. But British team coach Dennis Pursley has said that the use of hi-tech fabrics to aid swimmers is tantamount to cheating.

An interesting claim. As we've covered before in Company Clothing there are fabrics out there that can do some incredible stuff and if we can help improve sporting prowess through their use where's the harm? After all, if it's open to everyone it's still a level playing field and all it means is everyone is going faster, but those who are the best will still be the fastest.

But perhaps swimmers shouldn't be allowed to use these fabrics. If a world record tumbles how much is due to the suit and not the swimmer? Would the swimmer's own innate talent have broken the record against the previous swimmers who didn't have the technology?

This looks like a debate that could, er, run and run...What do you think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So does he suggest they should swim naked?