Never-Ending Tech Race

For nine years, Canadian triathlete Jasper Blake has been selecting from a menu of technological aids in a bid to get to the top of his event—a leg-sapping, lung-wringing combination of swimming, cycling and running that only the fittest, and perhaps dorkiest, athletes can win. "Triathlon is a nerdy sport," says the intense, lean, 1.7-m Blake. "We have the weirdest group of people into the most gimmicky, gizmo things."

When training on his bicycle, Blake uses the SRM Powermeter, a data-crunching disc attached to the bike's crank arm. Invented by a German company, the device measures the power and rhythm of each pedal push, as well as the cyclist's heart rate. He's even got gizmos working for him as he sleeps. Blake has pitched a plastic "high-altitude tent" atop his queen-size bed at his home in Victoria. A compressor pumps in air containing 15% oxygen, equal to the rarefied air 3,000 meters above sea level, compared with 21% oxygen at sea level. As Blake snoozes, his body compensates for the lower level of oxygen it is getting by producing more red blood cells. Because red blood cells carry oxygen through the body, the theory is that generating more of them reduces fatigue. Blake concedes his oxygen cocoon "looks ridiculous" and gets "pretty hot," but he is convinced that spending uncomfortable nights at simulated altitude will help him become a better athlete. Such wizardry isn't cheap. High-altitude tents cost as much as $7,000; the SRM Powermeter costs around $2,900; customized training bikes start at about $4,000. "You don't absolutely have to use all this stuff, but you're kind of silly not to," says Blake. "If you don't, you're just putting yourself five meters behind the starting line before you start."

Like many Olympic hopefuls, Blake trains in a modern matrix of tech and technique, mind and body. Olympic coaches and athletes now exploit a wide range of mechanical, video and computer devices designed to coax peak performance out of human bodies. Complex cables propelled by pulleys drag runners faster than they thought they could sprint. A new machine from France lets speedsters run virtual-reality races against the best in the world. Innovative video software allows swimmers and divers to break down their performances frame by precious frame. Like Blake, many athletes have been "sleeping high [in altitude-simulation tents] and training low," and everybody has been trying to figure out how to cope with the Athenian heat.

Does any of this help? Sports scientists and some coaches concede that such breakthroughs may make only a small improvement in performance—but that can be a critical increment. "It's 5%, max," says Dr. Gordon Sleivert, director of sports science and medicine at the PacificSport Canadian Sport Center in Victoria. "But 1% might make the difference between a gold medal and eighth place."

It's that differential that made Montreal track coach Daniel St.-Hilaire order the Best Runner, a "speed-optimization system" designed by Pierre-Edouard Sainsily, a biomechanical engineer in Bordeaux. The $58,000 device consists of video cameras, sensors and other data-collecting gadgetry that are positioned on a track and wired to a workstation mounted trackside. St.-Hilaire uses it to record the speed, acceleration, starting power and strength of athletes such as Nicolas Macrozonaris, 23, Canada's top male sprinter, who has run a 10.03-sec. 100 m. Ranked No. 19 in the world in 2003, Macrozonaris will probably need to run under 10 sec. to make the 100-m Olympic final. But Sainsily believes his machine can help Macrozonaris get there. "If you train with the fastest runner, you run faster," he says. "It's the same with technology."

Best Runner will allow Macrozonaris to dissect each part of his race and compare it directly with the world's best by examining the device's computer-generated graphs and charts. Sprinter Hank Palmer, who trains with Macrozonaris, says, "It will help me improve by showing me exactly what speed I have to be at at what part. I'll be able to memorize the perfect way to run."

Palmer and Macrozonaris also use two sets of cables that offer interesting twists on the training regimen. They work out with resistance cables tethered to 10-kilogram metal plates that help them build strength. And they use "overspeed" cables, which drag them on a pulley system maneuvered by the coach; the idea is to reduce the brain's resistance to speed—think about running downhill. "It will help the athlete break his speed barrier," St.-Hilaire says. "As fast as he's humanly capable of running, we need to find a way to break that barrier." In other words, mind over body.