Av: Stian Røsten, Sigbjørn Skirbekk, Anne Tjønndal, Daniele Canini, Frida Wågan og Jens Grut Vorpvik
Game changer: the technoscientific revolution in sports
In Game Changer: The Technoscientific Revolution in Sports, Rayvon Fouché explores the evolving intersection of sport, science, and technology. Utilising examples from a variety of sports, the book delves into how technoscientific advancements challenge traditional notions of fairness, athleticism, and authenticity in modern sports. Fouché critically examines the implications of innovations like advanced sport uniform materials and performance-enhancing drugs in sports culture, governance, and athlete identity. By blending detailed descriptions of cases with technical and theoretical insights, the book provides a nuanced and rich analysis of a selection of compelling examples.
Fouché’s central thesis is that technological interventions have fundamentally reshaped how we understand athletic performance and sporting competitions. While sports have historically celebrated the ‘natural’ capabilities of the human body, the growing integration of science and technology increasingly blurs the boundary between human effort and technological enhancement. This transformation raises complex ethical, regulatory, and social questions about fairness and access. For instance, he questions how prosthetics, wearables, and other types of technological augmentations complicate the distinctions between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ athletes, using Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius (‘the blade runner’) and six times world paralympic champion in long-jump Markus Rehm (‘the blade jumper’) as examples (chapter 2).
The book is structured in two parts, each evolving around three key case studies. The first part ‘Judging artefacts’ includes controversies surrounding hydro-dynamic swimsuits in swimming (chapter 1), carbon-plated running shoes (chapter 2), and the role of assistive devices and technology in athletics (chapter 3). The second part: ‘Evaluating bodies’, considers gender verification debates in sports (chapter 4), the issue of doping and drug testing through the case of Lance Armstrong (chapter 5), and surveillance issues related to athlete biological passports (chapter 6). These examples all work to illustrate how technological and biological innovations provoke debates about equality and legitimacy in competition. Fouché’s conclusion chapter highlights the future of sport, stressing the importance of fostering critical dialogue about the evolving role of technology. He challenges readers to rethink concepts of fairness and authenticity in the face of inevitable technological advances.
Our research group found this book to be an enjoyable read. From our reading, we have two primary critiques of the book. The first pertains to how well the text works for its intended audience. We interpret this book to be written for the general public. Fouché’s writing style is both engaging and compelling, which we applaud. Still, the text requires quite a bit of academic knowledge to fully understand, as some of the chapters draws in sociological theories when analysing the empirical cases being explored. For instance, it is clear for us that the book is grounded in Actor-Network- Theory (ANT) which is also stated as the analytical framework (10). However, ANT is not explained or described in such a way that readers without preliminary knowledge of this theory can fully appreciate the structure and analyses of the chapters. Additionally, Cyborg Theory, as proposed by Donna Haraway, is abruptly introduced as a framework in the discussion of gender verification testing in Chapter 4 (131–153) without adequate explanation or justification for its application. However, the book might be written for those really invested in either the themes or the specific cases (e.g. Lance Armstrong, Pistorius, doping, gender verification tests) as these at times are presented through highly technical and complicated descriptions. For instance, in Chapters 1, 3, and 4, the lengthy and detailed elaborations of the cases leave insufficient space for thoroughly developing and addressing the critical questions posed at the end of each chapter (e.g. in relation to sport and sex identification on page 152–153: ‘In our emerging technoscientific era, will publics, competitors, and sport governing bodies be able to detach themselves from the tenets of sex-based competition in the interest of seeing more balanced competition with equivalent athletes?’). We see this as a missed opportunity, as questions raised by Fouché are highly relevant and interesting.
Simultaneously, our critical remark of the book’s sometimes long and thorough descriptions of the cases (swimsuits, biological passports, Lance Armstrong, and so on), could also be seen as one of its main strengths. For example, Fouché elaborates on how the designs of swimsuits have been crucial to sporting performance for well over 100 years. Up until the 1920s, the construction of swimwear for women had been moulded by strong societal conservatism. Therefore, it was surprising that England’s gold medal winning 4 × 100 m team wore form fitting suits, exposing more skin than had traditionally been the norm. At the same time, this example, along with Fouché’s detailed exploration of a century of technological innovation within swimming, demonstrates that gaining an edge through sporting equipment has always been – and probably always will be – an important part of sport. This point is further illustrated by the detailed chapter regarding how technological advancements played a role in breaking ‘the hour’ record in cycling.
These remarks highlight how the evolution of sporting gear and equipment has become a necessity for competing at the elite level. Thus, this might create increasing tension, whether it is the ‘motor or the machine’, as Fouché puts it, that ultimately determines success. The motor being the human body and the machine being technological innovations. Although we think his concluding remarks are too simplistic, in which we perceive him to argue that the ‘motor’ is the authentic and the ‘machine’ is the ‘nonauthentic’, we also think the detailed chapters creates a good overview of how different stakeholders within sport continuously negotiate what is ‘real’ sporting prowess and what is not. What is considered ‘real’ depends on different contexts, such as country, culture, sport, gender, position, and media. We believe that one of the main strengths of the book is precisely its emphasis on how discourses shape what is perceived as ‘authentic’ in sports at any given time. The conclusion chapter does not fully capture this complexity. This is also the second critique from our reading. Throughout the book, Fouché does a thorough job emphasising how technoscience is affecting sport, and that how technoscience is used and understood is not ‘a given’ but rather a result of a complex sociocultural battle between stakeholders. This is an important message from the book. However, in the conclusion all this effort is somewhat undermined by utilising what appears as an over-simplified and quite normative figure (208), dividing technological artefacts depending on whether they maintain or undermine authority (y-axis) and if they are internal or external (x-axis). Claiming that at the centre of the axes (0,0) makes technoscience ‘fully instrumental’ and understood as ‘benign and inconsequential material infrastructure of a game’ (216) appears problematic. As we read the book, we understand that the main purpose is to blur the boundaries and make the case that what counts as ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ sport a constant political and sociocultural battle that is ever-changing. Who decides what counts as authentic? And might that not change in line with societal and political developments? The conclusion seems to argue that the way forward for authenticity in sport is human performance and less reliance on technology. This does not sit well with the book as a whole, given that Fouché argues technoscience has always been part of sport and is part of the shaping of what sport is and will be, and that what is authentic is mostly down to which (romantic) narrative that dominates within a culture or society.
Overall, Fouché creates compelling narratives of how technoscience may change sports for better or worse, that captivate and challenge us readers to think and critically reflect on ‘what is at stake for the future sport’ (222). His skill in raising pertinent questions within the presented cases makes this book both engaging and intellectually stimulating. An example of this is his critical questions around the use of ‘enabling’ technology in paralympic sports in chapter three. By using the concept of game in the title, Fouché furthermore captures how the increasingly scientific and technical oversight is fraught with tensions for ‘publics, governing bodies, competitors, and technoscientific actors as the four main groups constituting sporting communities’ (10). Hence, the game highlights how the understandings between, for example, the ‘motor’ and the ‘machine’, ‘fairness’ and ‘cheating’, ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ can compete against each other with various consequences.
Although we agree with Fouché’s assertion that the ‘game’ between the motor and machine must evolve towards and understanding of the ‘symbiotic relationship between the motor and the machine, the body and the artifact’ (222), there is a missed opportunity to provide a more systematic exploration of the mechanism required to address these tensions. Moreover, while the conclusion raises critical questions, it relies on a normative framework (208) that simplifies the dynamics of the role of technoscience in sport, as opposed to embracing the nuanced and evolving nature of what constitutes ‘authentic’ sport, as emphasised in the other chapters of the book. In addition, the figures appear too static and would benefit from the inclusion of examples showing how the technologies can be placed in different parts of the figure due to changing conditions for application.
The book may find its most receptive audience among readers who are deeply interested in the intersection of sport, technology and society, particularly those who seek to challenge the idea that technoscience alone can solve all issues in these areas. Perhaps that is also the intended audience of the book. In conclusion, the book raises important and timely questions although it has already been seven years since it was published, and the field has developed rapidly. By providing ever relevant examples, it prompts readers to rethink the role of technoscience in shaping the cultural and competitive landscape of sport. Yet, newer books on this topic should also include examples such as additive manufacturing to create customised sports equipment (e.g. 3D printed shoes), regenerative medicine for treatment and rehabilitation of sports injuries (e.g. stem cells to treat joint issues) or artificial intelligence (e.g. modify or design new PEDs to evade current testing methods). Despite some gaps in practical guidelines and accessibility, the book succeeds in fostering a critical dialogue about the future of sport, making it a valuable contribution for those ready to deal with the intricate dynamics of this evolving field.
Referanse
Røsten, S., Skirbekk, S., Tjønndal, A., Canini, D., Wågan, F., & Grut Vorpvik, J. (2025). Game changer: the technoscientific revolution in sports: by Rayvon Fouché, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017. European Journal for Sport and Society, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/16138171.2025.2478763
