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New Ideas In Technology Are Used More And More To Improve The Reliability Of Decision Making In Sport, But A Few Sports Are Reluctant To Do So.

2nd April, 2011 - Posted by health news - No Comments

For a fan of any sport, there will always be things about the game which cause disagreement. The most obvious by far is the dodgy decision taken by those who are are supposed to be impartial and make sure of fair play. In the world of sport there will always be good goals disallowed, penalties given when they should not have been, batsmen given out when they were not, balls which land beyond the line but are called in and so on.

This is one of the reasons why sport has more frequently started calling upon technology to afford back up confirmation of what the human eye thinks it has seen happening. Typically, and for far too many reasons discuss here, football has stayed resistant to such an idea, but other sports have willingly embraced the technology. Fans who watch cricket will be familiar with the third umpire who is viewing the match remote from the pitch and with a profusion of technology to hand to confirm or deny shouts for LBW, or split second decisions when it is difficult to identify whether a player has been run out or not.

Tennis followers are very happy with Hawk-Eye (the same sort of technology employed in cricket) confirming whether a ball has bounced the ground inside or outside of the white lines or not, and the sport has gone one step further in actually letting players question a predetermined number of decisions in every game, which are then checked using the technology.

Hawk-Eye utilises several high-speed video cameras in conjunction with computer software to accurately map and indicate the results of the ball’s movement. It’s incredibly clever stuff and yet the football authorities are reluctant to provide the technology to back up the three humans who take the hassle from half the fans each time they make a decision. The cry of ‘Where’s your glasses, referee?’ (or something somewhat less friendly but along the same lines) is still common in football grounds throughout the country every weekend. Although, as this is the 21st century, perhaps these days the cry should be ‘have you had your Laser eye surgery yet, referee?’!

Particular sports use technology to assess unfair advantage, as in the sensors on athletes and swimmers starting blocks which can record a false start far more efficiently than the human eye. And American Football, of course, has used video evidence for many years to check the on-pitch officials’ judgements, though this does mean that there are a lot of interruptions to the play.

In some ways, these various technological advances are also becoming part of the spectator’s experience as well. Television footage of snooker now often uses the Hawk-Eye system to illustrate to the viewer exactly what the player is seeing, and can play out likely shots before the cue ball is struck to indicate to the viewer what options are a possibility for the player.

Apart from professional sports, technology provides some leisure pursuits with a safe process of playing what would otherwise be stupidly dangerous games. Laser combat games do precisely that by allowing the participants to shoot each other with their weapon’s Laser eye, causing no harm to the participants but enabling boys to be boys as far as real life war gaming is concerned. (I tried this game once on a ‘team building’ day with my fellow employees and found it a thoroughly boring way to fill an afternoon!) Of course, there are some small risks involved as reckless pointing of the gun at the face can cause Laser eye damage, but any reputable company running such events will check on usage and make sure of the safety of all those participating.

The laser gun is also making its way into international sport as it has been announced that such firearms will be used instead of air pistols in the Modern Pentathlon at next year’s London Olympics. And in other areas of sport, lasers are also used to good effect to treat ailments without the requirement for invasive surgery, and Laser eye surgery is used by sports participants such as golfers to correct their vision and therefore be able to see far more accurately what shot they are playing.

It seems that we’ve come a long way since the era when the 100 yard dash was timed by a man clutching a stopwatch and John McEnroe shook his head and declared ‘you cannot be serious’. So come on, football! Isn’t it about time you started to use technology too?