Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Top Footballers Face 7/7 Testing
The UK's England footballers and Premier League stars are to face Olympic-style, random out-of-competition drug testing. The new rules require players to state where they will be for one hour each day, seven days per week, to facilitate random testing.
All British Olympians, regardless of their sport, were subject to similar tests and restrictions in the build-up to the Beijing Games and the same rules will apply to footballers.
At some point, entrepreneurs may decide to create new leagues that embrace all forms of modification and enhancement - an Ultimate Football League - as described in The Sun Also Explodes, a short story by Chris Nakashima-Brown.
Olympics fans may recall the quest of Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee equipped with carbon-fiber blades called Cheetahs.
Pistorius was born without the fibula in his lower legs and with defects in his feet. His legs were amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old. He started competing with able-bodied athletes in South Africa in 2004.
The practice of declaring an athlete's whereabouts for an hour each day in advance, to allow drugs tests to be administered at short notice, is common to Olympic sports such as cycling and athletics.
The Ultimate Football League was the first to abandon professional athletics' anachronistic insistence on the prohibition of performance enhancements, be they pharmaceutical, biomechanical, or genetically engineered. It was a genius stroke by the founders. The audience was far more interested in superhuman performances than fidelity to nature, and the athletes were addicted to the potential of even greater power.
(Read more about Ultimate Football League (UFL).)
In May, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a ban by track and field’s world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, saying that there was not enough evidence to prove that Pistorius’s j-shaped blades, which attach below his knees, gave him an advantage. The Court said he should be allowed to compete with able-bodied athletes...
(Oscr Pistorius at Rome's Track and Field Gala [2008])
Pistorius ultimately failed to qualify for his country's Olympic team.
From BBC and The New York Times.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/11/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Culture ")
Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.' - Jack Vance, 1952.
How Old Are Tesla Designs?
You be the judge.
California Fireman Arrested For Starting Fires
'Fire is bright and fire is clean.' - Ray Brandbury, 1953.
Tether Cryptocurrency Flow Rate US$190Bn Per Day
'Alex did not find it surprising that people... were electronically minting their own cash.' - Bruce Sterling, 1994.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.
Drones In Vast Airborne Grids
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.
Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed!
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
AI Welfare Position At Anthropic Filled By Human
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
Marslink Proposed By SpaceX
'It was the heart of the Solar System's communication line...'
Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Wood-Panelled LignoSat Launched
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories
'His contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory.'
'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century
'The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge...'
Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Robot Hand Separate From Robot
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
