1. Post your thoughts on Semaya article.
It is difficult for me to address the Semaya article solely from the stance of competitive sports. But that is what I am going to attempt to do for this blog. Competitors are always going to be pushing to gain an edge on one another. This includes ways to disadvantage their opponents as well as ways in which for the competitor to excel in their own physical prowess. This is what I see being played out with the ruling that Semaya is fighting against. What I find to objective is that this ruling is seeking to change the natural state of the competitor in order to control the limits of a natural occurring hormone in the body.
Let's take a moment to tie this into our readings on Complexity. Let us also assume that Semaya has also not doped her system in other ways to gain advantage (I personally believe that a majority of international level competitors, that have access to the ability to dope are likely to) Semaya didn't become the athlete that she is today in a vacuum. All that is Semaya has to do with a very complex interplay of her parts that are her. Change one thing and you don't just modulate the system, you could very well destroy it. Think the butterfly effect. I think it is an error to approach the human system with this type of linear thought.
Having competed in a very small version of international competition in roller derby over the last decade, I feel like I have had an opportunity to interact with a number of different competitor personality types. What I have walked away with is an personal understanding that athletes wreck their bodies. In order to be extraordinary they tax their bodies in an unsustainable way. I believe this is a reason why we do not see many athletes with 40 year long careers where they are top in their class. I accept this as part of being an athlete and competitor. I think it would be interesting to have less rules than more rules. What would happen if we allowed the athletes to make the decisions on how far they wanted to push their bodies with full access to chemical enhancements. I do not think it is healthy, but is playing collision sports healthy? I think of the traumatic brain injury incurred by football players. I think it is at least an interesting thought experiment.
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I used to moonlight as a Pilates instructor. A lot of my clients were dancers and athletes. Many of them were so self-destructive with their competitiveness, and drive to excel at their game. It was so hard for me to get them to rest an injury for enough time to let it truly heal.
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