Olympic minipost
One of Simone Biles' floor routines as seen through a high speed camera. (go full screen) Many sports have undergone dramatic changes in the past fifty years. The introduction of springy floors and beams has allowed more dramatic routines that revolutionized gymnastics. It's a sport where powerful muscles and a short stature are required. Simone's incredible acceleration combined with the strength to jump explosively and change her moment of inertia in mid-air give her claim to the great athlete of our time title. At times she's experiencing g-forces usually found in aerobatic aircraft. Here's a short video from Quartz (it won't embed) before the Rio Olympics explaining a bit of what's going on as well as giving a sense of how far the sport has come.
Three major innovations have changed elite sports - equipment, extreme specialization of body type to match the demands of specific sports, and a much larger gene pool to selection from. David Epstein gave a nice talk about seven years ago touching on all three:
Many sports - particularly Olympic sports - lack the financial rewards seen in the top professional sports, but at the elite level it's clear the expanded gene pool has become important. Of course none of this applies at the amateur level - people find a sport or two they like and "just do it." There's a lot of evidence continuing these activities has a huge positive impact on health - particularly as one ages. It may be elite athletes encourage many of us to move. Perhaps the endeavor is cost effective at the societal level - it's both desirable and part of the public health policy in Norway.
Comments