Performance Technologies: Drugs and Fastskin at the Sydney 2000 Olympics

Abstract

Throughout preparations for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, there was substantial discussion of a range of technological innovations in sport. On the one hand, performance-enhancing drugs have been rejected as ‘unfair’ or ‘unhealthy’ whilst other technologies have been welcomed with little critique. The debate around drugs in sport and Fastskin bodysuits exposes key elements and contradictions within dominant discourses of sporting performance. At the same time that most athletes and administrators were arguing that equality of access by all Australian team members was the key factor in determining whether Australian swimmers should use bodysuits, other athletes clearly recognised the potential criticism that these suits represent some sort of ‘unnatural’ body enhancement. The issue of performance enhancement was effectively isolated from debates around performance-enhancing drugs by the distinction between the ingestion of drugs and the wearing of suits. As such, the use of the Fastskin suit was depicted as a temporary and function-specific enhancement of the body's natural’ ability and form, rather than a complete molecular transformation of the body — and therefore ‘unnatural’. In this debate, the Fastskin bodysuit and its performance-enhancing potential are presented and legitimated as an acceptable application of human scientific endeavour to the improvement of athletic achievement.