Source: i-future.livejournal.com
Sports evolve, as do all areas of human life. People are no longer relying solely on the body’s natural abilities because today we have reached a point where every extortionate record has already been set and the limit has been reached. And without outstanding achievements, no one will watch the competitions. That is why the influence of scientific and technological progress is becoming more and more evident in sports. Materials for making sports equipment are improving, training is becoming more computerized, eSport is gaining popularity (on Meta.reviews you will find a list of the best bookmakers, which accept bets on this discipline).
In this article, we will tell you what the leading futurists think sports will be like in the future and what awaits it.
Reducing the level of injuries
Source: moodle.vgafk.ru
It’s no secret that athletes put their health at great risk for the pleasure that spectators experience from watching competitions and games. For example, on average, a soccer player receives up to 190 injuries of varying severity per year. Some athletes are killed during matches. And this price, of course, is too high. In connection with these scientists are actively developing technologies that would help reduce injuries.
Very soon, new sports surfaces for courts, fields and race tracks will come into use, and their special composition will reduce the load on the bones, joints and ligaments of athletes. Developers of boots, stockings, gloves and other equipment for athletes adhere to the same goal. Their inventions, which in the future will begin to be used everywhere, will make it possible to postpone the moment when athletes have to end their careers since the body simply cannot cope with the loads.
The use of the latest medical technologies will also contribute to reducing injuries. Thus, the IDOVEN company presented a kit for monitoring the condition of athletes during training and rest. By analyzing data on the state of the body, the system will be able to detect heart problems at an early stage and prevent heart attacks and strokes, which often occur in professional athletes’ lives.
And Israeli experts have developed an application that can predict the occurrence of an injury several days before an athlete gets it. For this, biomechanical technologies are used, as well as the analysis of the physiological indicators of an athlete during training. The application is already used by some American and European soccer and baseball clubs, but similar developments will be used everywhere in the future.
If the athlete has already been injured, artificial intelligence can accelerate his recovery. It will analyze directly through the smartphone how a person performs the exercises prescribed by a physiotherapist and correct the athlete’s movements online. Such an application for people suffering from bone and muscle injury has already been developed and shows good results. In the future, such technologies are likely to reach a new level and become even more efficient.
Cyborg athletes
Source: trendymen.ru
Already, scientists are striving to make the human body more technological. They are implanted in the brain of different chips, replace missing body parts of prostheses with the best e-filling and carry out other improvements. In the future, all this will be integrated into the sport. Cyborg athletes will have completely different opportunities than their colleagues now have, and their competitions will become much more entertaining and interesting.
Bionic limbs
Already, athletes with bionic implants participate in competitions on a par with ordinary people. Their high-tech limbs are controlled by signals from the brain or the tension of muscle fibers. In the future, athletes will have artificial limbs with synthetic muscles that increase a person’s strength hundreds of times, allow him to run faster, jump higher, and demonstrate amazing athletic performance.
Artificial organs
Sometimes athletes are injured so badly on the field or the race track that they have to remove some internal organs. Now scientists have already developed an artificial heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and other important organs. Perhaps, over time, they will become so technological and become so widespread that athletes will also be allowed to use them so that they do not remain disabled for life for a few minutes of fame.
Electronic vision
Already, Google Glass glasses are capable of displaying all the information that we usually see in our smartphone on a miniature screen in front of our eyes using augmented reality. In doing so, they use bone conduction technology and transmit audio sound directly to the skull.
Can you imagine what opportunities will open up for athletes who will use such glasses or more advanced technologies that allow them to transmit an image directly to the retina? Athletes will be able to receive real-time information about the distance to a particular object, the direction, and speed of the wind (this will help to calculate the trajectory of the ball), the location of the opponents’ players or their teammates on the field.
And if we add to this the ability to receive real-time instructions from a coach using bone conduction technologies, then the sport will reach a completely different level, where the role of both athletes and their mentors will change.
Sensors
FIFA has already allowed footballers to use wearable technology during matches. It is quite possible that in the next 5 or 10 years, athletes will be equipped with (or even sewn under the skin) sensors that record respiration, pulse, muscle fatigue, and other indicators of the body. The coach, reading all this information in real-time, will be able to promptly make substitutions or correct the game patterns.
Genetic selection
Source: sportpit68.ru
Businesses that invest in sports and governments that want the best athletes to represent their country at international competitions are both interested in funding research on human genes for predisposition to a particular sport.
Based on the physical performance of an adult athlete, it is impossible to say with one hundred percent certainty how successful he will be in a few years. But thanks to DNA research, future champions can be selected as early as adolescence or childhood.
Scientists from South Africa and Russia are already working on it. They have established that everyone has a predisposition to sport and belongs to one of two genotypes. The first is more enduring (skiing, triathlon, cycling, and so on are suitable for them), while the second is distinguished by speed and strength (these qualities are useful in boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, and other sports).
Most likely, later scientists will be able to more accurately determine what characteristics the future athlete will have, and will entrust the selection of potential champions to artificial intelligence. Only then they will be sent to special sports institutions, where genetically inherent talents will be developed and cultivated. A higher level of technology will allow you to create perfectly balanced teams, where each player will have the right set of abilities. Also, maybe geneticists will even be able to predict in advance who will set what record, and we will only have to wait for this moment.
Conclusion
Of course, many of the predictions of futurists are based only on theories. Yet, thanks to them we can understand at what high-level sports will be under the influence of technological progress. There is no doubt that something very interesting awaits us!
