Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. A park run has become a huge non-competitive community event where you can walk, jog, run, volunteer or spectate. But is it still a level playing field when some joggers or runners turn up in 500 euro carbon plated super shoes while others are in battered trainers that have seen better days?
I'm joined by Joe Humphries, Deputy News Editor at the Irish Times who's been writing about this. Good morning, Joe. Morning, Clare. Do the park runners in the fancy shoes upset you?
It's not so much about them.
Chapter 2: What is Parkrun and its significance in the running community?
I mean, I agree with your introduction there, Parkrun. It's an inclusive event. It's not meant to be designed to be a competitive event. So the piece was more, it's more of the philosophical theme. I do a column once a week on a philosophical matter, unthinkable column.
And it was really looking at how really technological innovation in sport changes sport by its very nature or changes in activity. You might be aware that, I'm sure listeners are aware that these carbon fibre shoes came into
Chapter 3: Why are supershoes considered controversial in Parkrun events?
kind of public attention due to the athletes and Sebastian Saue who won the London Marathon in under two hours breaking that record. But a few years ago, these shoes were kind of regarded in athletics as cheating. I mean, a lot of runners and previous record holders said it's akin to what they call technological doping in sport.
You're effectively getting an advantage over other people doing the activity, doing the competition by reducing the amount of effort you have to put in as you're going along. So, and it's crept in, I suppose, really kind of the bigger issue is not so much, I'm not out to condemn anyone who wants to buy these shoes.
You want to spend 500 euros on the Adidas Adizeros or the 300 euros on the Nike Alpha Flies, which are doing well. I mean, there are cheaper models of these carbon fibre shoes as well you can get. But if people want to do it, that's fine. But it's really just the question of how an innovation like this, and it's a commercially driven innovation,
thing from the shoe companies have developed that it's become normalised and you do see them now being used, you know, in park runs, in fun runs, in mini marathons. And it becomes almost a must have element within competition. And this is why it's called a sort of a technological doping is that there's compulsion on other people to adopt the technology.
even if they mightn't have wanted to adopt it initially, there's almost a compulsion over time to take it on.
And with the park run, you're involved in a community event when you do park run. You're also sort of competing against yourself, really, aren't you? And maybe... Yeah, and that's the thing.
Maybe you're kind of, who are you trying to impress? Perhaps if you want to look at it just from the individual point of view. I mean, people might just like to experiment with them. They might be interesting to try out. They are a different running experience. People will say you're propelled forward a bit more. You're kind of bounced forward.
forward uh onto your onto you know your in your stride um i mean it there's a kind of a a an element as well within within the uk there's been concern around nike in particular advertising around parkrun so they've been putting up billboards at parkruns the uk saying things like um
joggers are welcome walkers will be tolerated there was a big pushback against that wasn't there there was pushback against that in the uk and people were saying the park run organizers themselves were saying look we don't want you to be commercializing our our park runs this is for everyone and in fact walkers are not just tolerated they're welcomed and this is open for walkers as much as it is for joggers so um you know there's there's that in the background and i suppose you have to wonder you know
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Chapter 4: How does technology influence fairness in sports like Parkrun?
You know, should participants in sporting activities be trying to get an edge? you know, using some expensive piece of technology that other people won't be able to get hold of.
So listeners are getting in touch on this, Joe, as we're chatting here. Parkrun is for everyone. That includes buggies, walkers, slow and fast runners. Super shoes give marginal gains. You still have to run.
Chapter 5: What philosophical questions arise from the use of supershoes?
So if someone wants to wear a super shoe to a parkrun, they're fully entitled to. I'm sure there are people there with €500 Gucci sunglasses, each to their own. But the sunglasses won't make you run faster. And that's your point here, isn't it? It is buying an advantage for yourself.
Yeah, again, I'm not trying to condemn any individual person who wants to do this. It's more about how, I mean, what I'm trying to draw attention to more is how, in a sense, the technology will change our kind of ethical outlook over time in that, you know, as I say, these things were regarded as a kind of a cheat, to put it crudely, a few years ago. Now it's kind of accepted even in athletics.
There's a sort of a, Sebastian Coe recently said, the head of international athletics said, look, we can't turn back the clock on these technologies. And it kind of points to, you know, a trend that's there in society, that large technologies are created and one can't put them back in the box. So we just accept them as norms in society.
So again, I wouldn't be condemning kind of individual kind of runners. I think there's a, you know, this is a lesson or this is kind of illustrative of a broader issue around how technology creeps in and affects our kind of outlook.
Because in the piece you talk about the enhanced games as well, which people might have heard about in Las Vegas happening this month, where people would be allowed to use banned substances. I mean, it's an extraordinary thing and some prohibited technologies as well.
So are you saying that it is items like this and competitions like at the Enhanced Games that sort of opened the door that was previously closed? We had moral values in relation to all of this that prevented people from going through and now we're in a different sort of an era here.
Yeah, well, I think this is it because the Enhanced Games, it's hard to know what's necessarily wrong with that in one level. Like people are taking drugs in this instance openly. And they're using equipment that's banned, in particular, these speed suits in swimming pools are being permitted in the hands games, which aren't allowed in the Olympics.
So, you know, you can argue, well, what's the difference between cheating with a speed suit and wearing one of the carbon fibre shoes? They're both technological enhancements that are designed to kind of give one athlete an advantage over another. I think, to be honest with you, sport has become entangled, if you like.
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Chapter 6: How have perceptions of technological advantages in sports changed over time?
If you think of the traditional idea we have of the Corinthian sport and ideal, the Olympian who would compete just for, you know, on a sort of a level playing field in an amateur era, that era is gone. And I suppose a lot of the old values of sport have been eroded through professionalism.
What I would argue for, and I suppose this comes back, this is the bottom line, or at least a question, is there something within sport that is above just a commercial operation, a purely competitive operation? And I guess there's a division between maybe the romantics in the sporting world and the hard-nosed professionals. And you see that tension in all sports.
I'm probably a bit more of a romantic. I probably feel...
uh technology kind of particular hasn't been particularly good for sport you can look at va or in soccer and so on um but there is a view that look sport is ultimately it's just a wing of of capitalism it's about uh you know excelling um you know whatever field and using whatever advantage you can get to do that and spending whatever money you can to do that so i think there's that tension within sport what i would just draw attention to i suppose when i'm trying to
kind of allude to is that there are those values that were there in the past, this idea of being on sporting. And, you know, is there anything that's now still considered on sporting?
And you can see it across sporting disciplines, people kind of getting an unfair advantage, pulling people's jerseys, you know, tumbling over in soccer when they weren't injured, you know, trying to get the referee to get sent an opponent off. You've all sorts of types of behaviour that You can strictly get away with and in a win at all costs type of sporting philosophy, you'd say go for it.
But, you know, is there any kind of behaviour we can still say is on sporting? in the context. And it's kind of to think about these enhancements within that debate.
Our values may have changed. Well, Joe, there's plenty of food for thought there. Thank you very much for joining us. And I hope that you're wearing the battered 10-year-old trainers. Joe Humphreys there, who is Deputy News Editor at the Irish Times.
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