When is sports equipment so good that it's actually cheating?
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There is a lot of cool sports equipment that has been banned from sports because it makes athletes look too good. Swimsuits that make a swimmer too streamlined, gloves that give a receiver's hands too much grip, bats that allow a player to hit the ball too hard, and shoes that help a runner go too fast…

They call it 'TECH DOPING', where physical equipment is used to gain an unfair advantage. In this video I show you the banned equipment you won't see at the Paris Olympics, and the cutting edge technology you will see that is at the limit of what is allowed.

You may be thinking, wait a minute, no equipment should give athletes an advantage! But… we don't walk barefoot anymore. We don't swim naked. We use technology to exercise. And that technology is constantly improving and advancing what people can do.

So… where is the line?

This is about much more than sports. In every part of our lives, technology advances what we can do! And it's up to us to decide what we want from it. This video is about that question.
We talked to athletes, looked at the best gear in the world, and even went all the way to Nike's testing lab to try on Team USA's real Olympic uniforms. This is the latest in sports technology, explained.

Chapters:
0:00 What is “technology doping”?
1:48 What equipment should be banned?
3:10 The fastest swimsuit in the world
4:23 Should this be allowed?
5:24 The fastest shoes in the world
6:28 I cut open a super shoe
8:32 What makes super shoes so fast?
9:28 I try on Team USA's Olympic uniform
11:36 Should these shoes be allowed?
12:42 Should prosthetics be allowed?
14:01 Why Blake Leeper was banned from the Olympics
15:46 What is fair?
4:38 PM 😉

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Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. In her show Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see a positive future they can help build. Before becoming independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox's Netflix show, Explored. She produced videos for Vox's YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox's first-ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox's YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and viewing:
Grab and Go: How Sticky Gloves Changed Football, NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/sports/super-bowl-nfl-gloves.html
Space Age swimsuit reduces drag, breaks records, NASA: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/ch_4.html
– Swimming bans for high-tech suits, end of an era, NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/sports/25swim.html
– FINA LZR Racer rule: https://www.pvswim.org/official/rules/FINA_Swimsuits_2009-07.pdf
Nike's fastest shoes could give runners an even bigger advantage than we thought, the result: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/13/upshot/nike-vaporfly-next-percent-shoe-estimates . html
Supershoes are reshaping distance running, MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/25/1093520/supershoes-running-kenya-carbon-plate-shoes/
– The controversy behind Nike's Vaporfly running shoe, explained, WSJ: https://youtu.be/wVXrIaPuP7c?sibtJyElVpQjbUpzaQ
– The science behind the world's fastest shoe, Cheddar: https://youtu.be/Mm61IkzyJxI?sipy7XHYQGOwgP4TYQ
– How Eliud Kipchoge ran a sub-2 hour marathon, Mike Boyd: https://youtu.be/A73HQwEct-o?siuUk3mSj1YRR6KLXM
– He could be the first American amputee in the Olympics, Blake Leeper, Great Big Story: https://youtu.be/_P9GXINym4s?si_y8JL-7n9qw2x6_J
– The shoe so good the Olympics labeled it a cheat, half as interesting: https://youtu.be/JRyqd0Z6kZI?si8m1tfbmprNcRKOPl

Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/

Equipment I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Music Bed, Tom Fox

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Welcome to the joke layer:

Which sport always has problems?
Badminton.

Find a way to use "issues" in a comment to let me know you're a real person who made it to the end of the description 🙂

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