- Cyborgs in sports
The cyborgization of sports has come to the forefront of the national conscious in recent years.Fact|date=August 2008 Through the media, America has been exposed to the subject both with the
BALCO scandal and the accusations of blooddoping at the Tour de France levied againstLance Armstrong andFloyd Landis . But, there is more to the subject;steroids ,blood doping ,prosthesis , body modification, and maybe in the future, genetic modification are all topics that should be included withincyborgs in sports.Fact|date=August 2008teroids
The most commonly used steroids in sports are
anabolic steroids .Fact|date=August 2008Anabolic steroids are synthetically created to function like male hormones. Athletes use it to enhance their strength and performance beyond their natural means. Anabolic steroids increase the amount of testosterone in the body, which promotes muscle and bone growth in the body. Anabolic steroids also allow athletes to work out for longer periods of time than they naturally can.Anabolic steroids also can have effects that are not advantageous to an athlete. Excessive use can result in some of the excesstestosterone converting intoestrogen , a reduction in sexual function, temporaryinfertility , and the development of breasts in males. Athletes take other drugs to stop the conversion of testosterone to estrogen.Anabolic steroids can also cause growth in the left ventricle. An increase of cardiovascular exercise can counteract the growth in the left ventricle. Use ofanabolic steroids can also cause an increase in blood pressure in both males and females due to the decrease ofhigh density lipoprotein and the increase oflow density lipoprotein .Blood doping
Blood doping usually refers to three forms of addingred blood cells to the blood stream. The first form of blood doping is called homologous transfusion, in which the red blood cells from another person of the same blood type as the athlete are concentrated and frozen for a later transfusion when the athlete is going to start an event. The second form of blood doping is autologous. Autologous transfusions are when an athlete takes out theirred blood cells body before a competition and transfuses them back in their body right before the competition. The other form of blood doping is done through the injection of a hormone callederythropoietin .Erythropoietin increases the production ofred blood cells in the blood stream. All of these forms ofblood doping are used to increase theoxygen -carrying capacity of the blood.Blood doping is mainly used in endurance sports such ascycling andcross-country skiing because the extra oxygen carrying capacity given to the blood throughblood doping gives the athlete more endurance.Blood doping does have dangerous aspects to it. During ablood transfusion you run the risk of getting a severe infection. After an autologous transfusion, an athlete can becomesanemic due to the lack ofred blood cells in the blood.Erythropoietin injection is the more dangerous form ofblood doping .Erythropoietin injections can create too manyred blood cells , which make the blood thicker and the thicker blood strains the heart. The strain on the heart can cause an athlete to die while they sleep due to the slow in heart rate while sleeping.Prosthesis
The most common forms of
prosthetics and enhancement we see in sports today are prosthetic legs andTommy John surgery .Tommy John surgery has resurrected many careers inMajor League Baseball , possibly allowing pitchers to throw harder than they ever were able to do before. Some prime examples of this areEric Gagné ,Kerry Wood , andJohn Smoltz . "I hit my top speed (in pitch velocity) after the surgery," says Wood, theChicago Cubs ' 26-year-old All-Star. "I'm throwing harder, consistently." Gagne went from an average pitcher to being hall of fame eligible, winning theNational League Cy Young Award in 2002, by tying theNational League record for most saves in a season, and theNational League Rolaids Relief Man of the Year in 2002 and 2003.However some people, including Dr. Frank Jobe, are skeptical about the ability of the Tommy John procedure to actually improve a pitcher's velocity. Instead, Dr. Jobe believes the increases are just perceived rather than real.
Tommy John surgery was invented because the pitcherTommy John didn’t believe that his career was over. Dr. Frank Jobe invented the surgery and usedTommy John himself as aguinea pig . The surgery involves replacing the torn ligament with a ligament from another part of the body, such as the hamstring, knee or foot. What’s interesting, and in many cases disturbing, about the surgery is that it is being used more and more for younger and younger arms.Fact|date=August 2008As of now, prosthetic legs and feet are not advanced enough to give the athlete the edge, and people with these prosthetics are allowed to compete, possibly only because they are not actually competitive in the Ironman event among other such -athlons.
Prosthesis intrack and field , however, is a budding issue. Prosthetic legs and feet may soon be better than their human counterparts. Some prosthetic legs and feet allow for runners to adjust the length of their stride which could potentially improve run times and in time actually allow a runner with prosthetic legs to be the fastest in the world.League Policies On Cyborgs in sports
Major sports leagues have encountered these athletic enhancements being used in their sports. Some leagues have dealt with enhancements by banning them to keep the way the game is played the same, but leagues have adopted some of the enhancements and made them standard.
Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) has been in the media mostly for the amount of steroid use in their league. In 2003, many major league baseball players were linked toBALCO , a company on trial for producing steroids. Such players asBarry Bonds ,Rafael Palmeiro ,Mark McGwire , andSammy Sosa were called in to be asked about theirsteroid use. All the players either dodged the questions or denied their use of illegalsteroids . After denying use ofsteroids in the trial,Rafael Palmeiro tested positive tosteroids in one of theMLB random steroid tests. After the trial andPalmeiro ’s positive test, most fans were suspicious if all the modern daybaseball players were usingsteroids like the players that were on trial.Fact|date=August 2008 In 2005, theMLB decided to enact a harsher penalty for players who use steroids. The first positive test for steroids results in a 50-game suspension, the second would result in a 100-game suspension, and a third positive test would result in a lifetime ban from theMLB . TheMLB hasn’t frowned upon all forms of athletic enhancements in humans.Tommy John surgery has become a normal procedure for pitchers who are having problems with torn elbow ligaments. BeforeTommy John surgery was successfully performed, damage to the elbow ligaments would end the career of a pitcher.The
National Football League (NFL) has had its own share of problems with athlete steroid use. TheNFL has have had a policy against steroid use since 1987. Their modern day policy was adopted in 1989. The first positive test forsteroids results in a four-game suspension, the second would result in 8-game suspension, and a third positive test would result in a one-year suspension. In 2006,Shawne Merriman , alinebacker for theSan Diego Chargers , tested positive forsteroids in a random test. Currently theNFL only usesurinalysis , which doesn’t detect the use ofhuman growth hormone . Even though he tested positiveShawne Merriman was still selected to play in thePro Bowl . After the 2006 season, the NFL decided on a policy that players who test positive forsteroids would be ineligible for thePro Bowl in the same season.Cycling
The
International Cycling Union (UCI) has had to deal withblood doping andsteroid use in their races. Usually any proof of use of an athletic enhancer will result in the cyclist being stripped of their medal. The UCI usesurinalysis to detect if thecyclist has an enhanced amount oftestosterone in their body.Blood doping is much harder for UCI to test for. The UCI usually searches acyclist 's house for any proof ofblood doping such aserythropoietin . After winning theTour de France in 2006,Floyd Landis ’urinalysis came back with atestosterone toepitestosterone ratio of 11 to 1, which exceeds the maximum legal ratio of 4 to 1. A ratio that large is evidence ofsteroid use. Landis has not been stripped of the medal due to questions about how valid the positive test is, but he is not recognized as the winner of the race.With the vast amount of sports included in the
Olympics , theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) has to deal with different forms of athletic enhancers. TheIOC formed theWorld Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 1999 prior to the 2000Summer Olympics inSydney to combat the use of performance enhancers in Olympic events. WADA was used to standardize the rules about banned substances in different sports and different countries. In 2004 prior to the 2004Summer Olympics inAthens , WADA createdWorld Anti-Doping Code to help standardize the doping policies. Since the formation of WADA positive test results have decreased. In the 2006Winter Olympics , only one athlete was stripped of their medal due to a positive test forillegal performance-enhancing drugs .References
* Baseball Almanac - The Official Baseball History Site.
* Butryn, T. M. "Posthuman podiums: cyborg narratives of elite track and field athletes." Sociology of Sport Journal 20.1 (March 2003)
* Butryn, T. M. (2001). Cyborg horizons: Sport and the ethics of self-technologization. Research in Philosophy and Technology. In press.
* Butryn, Ted M. “It’s Not About the Book: A Cyborg Counternarrative of Lance Armstrong”
* Dodd, Mike “Tommy John Surgery: Pitcher’s Best Friend.” USA Today July 2003
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* Entine, Jon “Drug Running” JonEntine.com
* Hoberman, John M. Mortal Engines. The Free Press, New York. 1992
* Iyer, Pico. “How can a Botox nation boo Bonds?” Los Angeles Times, May 17, 2006 Pg. 13, 714 words
* Onishi. (2003). Development of the basic structure for an exoskeleton cyborg system. Artificial life and robotics, 7(3)
* van Hilvoorde, Ivo and de Wert, Guido. “Flopping, Klapping and Gene Doping: Dichotomies Between ‘Natural’ and ‘Artificial’ in Elite Sport”
* Weinreb, Michael. "From Radical To Routine: Tommy John Surgery." Sports Illustrated 18 June 2007: Pg 42.External links
*cite web | url = http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/butryn/whatisa.htm | title = Ted M. Butryn's Cyborgology 101
*cite web | url = http://posthumanisms.blogspot.com/ | title = Andy Miah's Post Humanism Blog
*cite web | url = http://cyborgdb.bkgs.com/index.html | title = Cyborg Database(under construction)
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