Athletes from all kinds of sports have been coming up with ways to beat the system since the dawn of professional sports.
Gone are the days when it could be done only by fixing the results, physically taking in performance-enhancing pills and assistance of other nutritional science products. Future may be a lot different from what we have seen in the past. Affecting the results with the assistance of 3D printing can be a huge player in this game, no puns intended. This all has opened up a whole new chain of concerns and worries for World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to look in to.
The world of sports has already seen a number of instances in which technology played a huge part in athletes enhanced performances. Major examples include the use of Speedo LZR racer swimsuit which caused seventeen world records to fall in a single tournament back in 2009. Some certain types of football helmets, tennis rackets, cricket bats, hockey sticks and lot of other sports products have undoubtedly enhanced the performances of the athletes in almost all kinds of sports.
Most of these products were developed using rather conventional method but now the advancement in 3D printing technology will undoubtedly take this to a whole new level as it is fully capable of revolutionizing the science of manufacturing. Anything could be built to personal specifications down to the extreme limits of precision. Paralympic athletes using 3D technology can make this discussion even more complicated and complex.
So far there are no news or reports of 3D technology being discussed by the World Anti-Doping Authority at the moment but if the development keeps happening at this pace then it is very certain that some clauses and sections will be added to the rule books. But the gray areas in this discussion are so big, it is really hard to decide where a line should be drawn.
