Technology In Olympics

The Olympics are a collection of sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions. The olympic games are the most globalized sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. They are held every four years, with the Summer and Winter games alternating by occuring every four years but two years apart. There are different aspects of the event. There is the political aspect, the economic aspect, the cultural aspect and the technological aspect. The reason for this is that olympics go so much deeper than just the games. Lives are affected, new cultures are explored, technology is being utilized and the economy of the host countries

Technology is not only a huge part of the Olympics, but of sport in general. Today’s elite athletes are often extensions of the technology they use; making these athletes Cyborg Athletes (Miah, 2003). Olympic athletes use technology to create physical efficient and economically productive bodies. Athletes use medical technology to repair torn ligaments and broken bones through reconstructive surgery. Performance technology is used basically at all times in sports. No matter what sport it is, if it being played at a high level, performance technology is being used. Sprinting spikes are used in track and field, armor is used in fencing, basketball shoes are used in basketball, helmets are used in cycling etc. Even motivation takes form through technology. You can now find motivation just by looking at your phone and going on youtube. Eric Thomas has made a living giving motivational speeches and posting them online. Hydration technology is also very big in today’s sports. Regular water is now a second thought as athletes now have become so used to things like gatorade, muscle milk, protein shakes etc. In the age we live in now, social media has become a very big of olympic technology. Social media has substantially changed how people consume media content, particularly with during sport mega-events. Many called the 2016 Rio Olympics the “most social games,” due to its vast expansion of social

One of the biggest economic aspects of the Olympics is corporatization. This is the process where social institutions adopt the profit-driven focus, the rational efficiencies and brand structures of commercial corporatization. A huge part of this is the idea of Elite sport. Elite sport is a capitalist industry in which the athlete is the producer and the audience are the consumers (Rigauer, 1981). Because of elite sport, the Olympics have been reorganized to maximize economic rationality, profit maximization, and brand identity (Edmonds, 2018c). You can see this on many of the Kellogg 's Corn Flakes boxes, as many of them include Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps. You can also see this in Mcdonald’s products as they also sponsor the Olympics. Though all this sounds effective for the Olympics, the sponsors and the broadcasters, the economy of the host country usually takes a toll. In fact. Cities often go bankrupt after hosting the Olympics. Even in the most recent summer Olympics, Brazil, the host country, took a sizeable hit financially. In Going for Gold: The Economics of the Olympics, it highlighted this issue. Unfortunately, the price tag of well over $10 Billion for the event is adding to the already considerable strain government budgets in Brazil. Faced with a nasty recession, cuts in public services, and risking unemployment, throngs of Brazilians have turned out to protest what is seen as wasteful