How Much Help is Too Much?

I'd suggest anything is ok as long as it's available to all participants else it becomes a budget contest.

Equipment only helps to a certain extent...I'm sure if Tiger Woods used my clubs he'd still play a pretty good round...whereas if I used his.

Del

GA, and so voted. About as well put as can be. Lessee, your handicap is, what, _{oh wait, yeah, I remember,} it's that you're a crappy golfer...

American Baseball is to be commended on this one issue.

They have NOT allowed any changes to the equipment.

Contrast this with tennis,with high tech material,and over sized rackets it has changed the game from a serve and volley (plan and execute) to a game played from behind the baseline with the ferocity of a trapped animal.

MLB, at any rate - there's always the controversial aluminum bat, though...

This goes for technical training as well. The bigger dollar wins.

Every athelete should have the opportunity to train full time and use all of the latest training equipment, nutrition and techniques.

This is not the case in every country.

If the endorsement/sponsor money for an event was pooled so that every athlete in that event had use of it equally, then we could start to say it is a fair event.

If we were to ban products that enhanced a performance, then the athlete would eventually reach a peak that could not ever be beaten. The fact that swimsuits have been designed to move water around the swimmer and therefore make them a tad faster is immaterial, it is not that much and the fact is that in a race between athletes of the same fitness and power, it is the start or the tactics that will determine the winner. I am not proposing that performance enhancing drugs be used, but I don't think that a piece of clothing wins a race, the athlete does. If we were to go down the route of looking at the conditions of the event, then the long jump record that Bob Beaman set in Mexico would not have been allowed because of the altitude, let the athletes wear whatever works best, this allows innovation in design of garments and fabrics which is very human.