The future of the Olympic Games is cyborg: post-gender and technological

This year's Olympic and Paralympic Games went far beyond athletic competition, becoming a stage for discussions on gender issues, mental health, and even doping. First, the Norwegian women's beach handball team was fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms, as required by convention. Meanwhile, the men's team is free to wear shorts and shirts, and it is in the photograph of the two teams that this inequality becomes glaring, as does the sexualization of female bodies and the role of sponsors in pushing for more revealing styles.

Added to this is the discussion about the "athlete's body." While the Olympic Games make explicit the diversity of bodies across different sports, many athletes were attacked not only on social media but also by professionals covering the matches. One example was the Dutch journalist who criticized the body of the Brazilian team's goalkeeper, as well as another Brazilian beach volleyball player (even after she had beaten Kenya 2-0) and a Mexican gymnast. In other words, the attacks and criticisms of other people's bodies were, unsurprisingly, focused on women.

At this point, the discussion about athletes' uniforms touches on a performance issue that has nothing to do with technology, but rather with conventions—certain uniforms are more uncomfortable and, therefore, can hinder an athlete. However, in past Olympics, equipment like the LZR Swimsuit and Nike Alphafly were banned and classified as doping for providing an unfair advantage to athletes. The former is a line of competitive swimwear made by Speedo using a high-tech elastane-nylon and polyurethane fabric; the latter is a shoe released in 2017 by Nike that was advertised as being "super light, soft, and capable of offering 85% energy return." 

In 2019, runner Eliud Kipchoge wore a prototype of the shoe and became the first athlete to run a marathon in under two hours—which is why the Nike Alphafly was banned. However, the new Nike Vaporfly model was permitted, provided that other shoes also followed rules such as not having a sole thicker than 40mm and having no more than one support plate or blade. 

But when we talk about doping, we usually end up thinking about cases of athletes who used drugs and other substances that could improve their performance. It was because of this that Russia was banned from the Tokyo Olympics, although "clean" Russian athletes competed under the name of the Russian Olympic Committee. 

An article published on the blog Applied Divinity Studies, however, criticizes the way the IOC (International Olympic Committee) conducts anti-doping tests, from their obsolescence to the tricks athletes can use to mask a positive result. In the case of testosterone, for example, there are variants that have a half-life of 29.5 days or just 0.8, which makes detection much more difficult. Beyond that, there are the genetic differences themselves—the article mentions the difference between testosterone levels in Swedish and Korean athletes, but we could also mention the case of intersex and trans athletes.

After World Athletics approved regulations on hormone levels in 2018, intersex athletes have been barred from competing in international events such as the Olympics. One of the most famous cases is that of athlete Caster Semenya, who won gold medals in previous editions. Her testosterone levels are higher than the female average, and to compete on an "equal" footing with other athletes, she would need to lower her hormone levels. However, when Semenya began taking medication for this purpose, she noticed a decline in her health. 

However, the Tokyo Olympics were also the first edition to openly feature trans and non-binary athletes in competition. This was the case for Quinn (Canadian soccer), Alana Smith (US skateboarder), Chelsea Wolfe (US BMX team), and Laurel Hubbard (competitor on the New Zealand women's weightlifting team). 

In Hubbard's case, for example, she was able to compete in the Olympics as a female representative because the International Olympic Committee recently defined that anyone could compete on the women's team, regardless of sex assigned at birth, provided their testosterone levels were below a certain threshold. However, as we noted above and as also mentioned in the Applied Divinity Studies article, qualifying an athlete based on their testosterone levels is highly imprecise.

The proposal advocated in the article, therefore, is not only to reform the Olympics to end doping tests but also to allow athletes to benefit from equipment and substances that can enhance their performance and improve their health. One example given is the steroid Norethandrolone, which is banned in the US but used to treat burns and anemia in France. Another is the case of Tesla cars, which were initially designed to be sports cars but ended up being adapted for the average consumer after having their "high-end" version. The text, then, believes that "with sufficient investment, performance-enhancing drugs could become safe and legal for both elite athletes and ordinary humans. Not just to run faster and jump higher, but also to live longer, healthier lives, without fear of disabilities or muscular dystrophies."

Its proposal is to rethink the Olympics as a transhumanist competition, regarding the implementation of these enhancements as a baseline. If the United States once competed with the Soviet Union to see who would get a man to the moon first, the article suggests that this should happen again to drive the scientific and technological development that underpins military competition between nations. 

Beyond that, rather than banning technologies and substances or destroying the career of an athlete caught in a doping test, the article suggests that these technologies be legalized provided that:

• To ensure constant improvement rather than monopoly, all designs must be commercially available from the first event in which they are used competitively. Alternatively, designs could be released through public patents with accessible licenses.
• "Mechanical doping," defined as equipment that provides its own power source, should not be deliberately banned but should exist in its own category, equivalent to weight classes. Unlike drug testing, this is easily verified through thermal imaging and conventional X-rays.
• Within the mechanical category, bionic legs, a third thumb and exoskeletons could be permitted.
• Parathletes should be welcomed without any scrutiny and without the fear that running blades or other prosthetics might offer an "unfair advantage." As we can see, this regulation is not only an impediment to progress but also deeply ableist ("You can compete, you just can't be better").
  

That is, if the International Olympic Committee offered more openness to this type of change, we might not only be seeing the birth of transhumanist Olympics but perhaps the very obsolescence of the Paralympic category. There is no magic, consensual solution to this type of issue, but in any case, we already live in an era of techno-athletes. 

Paul Preciado is a gender studies theorist who comments on how trans people are "techno-human" for already making use of technologies such as hormone supplements or even surgeries as a way to manipulate their bodies. If, for Donna Haraway, a cyborg is a post-gender being modified by technology, then we are increasingly approaching a future of Olympics where being a cyborg will be the norm—both regarding the issue of doping and the elimination of the division between women's and men's teams.