In the third millennium, futurologists predict the flowering of all kinds of all-round sports and sports in general. Of course, no one can know what the future holds, but it is interesting to make predictions, to speculate and to read about the future. In this article, you will find out what sports in the next 10 years may become, according to futurologists’ predictions.
Athletes will become younger
All futurologists agree on the competitions of the future. Records, victories, brilliant performances will be the privilege of athletes who will be under 20 years old.
An example of this is the recent story of Kauan Basile, a boy who plays for Santos’ U9 junior team. In 2019, he was recognized as the best player in the State Championship, which was not surprising, because Kauan does just magic tricks with the ball and perfectly performs free kicks. In January, an 8-year-old boy became the youngest athlete to sign with Nike.
And there are a lot of such stories. Of course, this does not mean that older athletes will no longer be able to achieve outstanding results. Yet, the general trend is that rejuvenation will occur in all types of professional sports. And it will reach such a scale that in the coming years, athletes who are almost 22 years old will be called veterans.
Mixing different sports
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The second obvious option for the development of sports soon is that several disciplines will be combined. First of all, we are talking about combining different types of sports in one tournament. The simplest example of such a competition is the relay or biathlon.
To understand that this trend will be relevant in the future, it is enough to pay attention to how popular triathlons, pentathlons, or decathlons have become lately. They involve all-round athletes who run, swim, shoot, fence, long jump, high jump, shot put, throw javelin and discus. It is worth noting that they do it almost simultaneously and often achieve the same impressive results as the core specialists in these disciplines.
The unisex format in sports
Futurologists are confident that in the future there will be a mixing of sports not only at the level of disciplines. The division of competitions into men and women will also disappear. The largest world and European championships will be held in a unisex format. This means that teams will be composed of both sexes.
Even today such a sport as synchronized swimming is no longer only for women. There are mixed-sex duets at competitions. In boxing, men enter the ring with female boxers, who are not inferior to them in professionalism and sportsmanship. And mixed doubles in tennis and badminton are not worth mentioning as they have been around for a long time.
Biohacking and the use of doping
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In recent years, cases of biohacking have spread. People improve their bodies with chips and other devices to enhance cognitive, volitional or communicative qualities. Already, athletes with bionic body parts are competing on a par with regular athletes. An example of this is Oscar Pistorius, a six-time Paralympic champion and a silver medalist at the Daegu World Championships, who does not have both feet.
All this makes it possible to predict the creation of a whole direction in sports, where certain cyborgs with gene doping will compete.
Most likely, in a few years, drug and other types of doping will be cancelled, since commercial sport requires entertainment and intensity of the struggle, namely, doping reveals and enhances the capabilities of the human body. It also helps to set new records, pushing known limits. Already now, humanity has come close to the fact that without special stimulants, athletes will not be able to raise the bar even higher. And without records and new achievements, the sport will lose its attractiveness from a commercial point of view.
Splitting a single sports community
In the next decade, world sport may be fragmented for political and ideological reasons. Presumably, the division will occur along several lines at once.
First of all, the collapse will affect the Olympic sports. The reason for this will be pressure on sports functionaries from the authorities of different countries, disagreements in geopolitics, an increase in the number of unrecognized republics (now there are about 40 of them around the world), as well as corruption in sports. All these prerequisites will lead to the creation of alternative competitive and sports-commercial systems, under the auspices of which independent championships, cups and games will begin to be held. At the same time, the IOC, WADA and International Sports Federations will not have relations with them and will not be able to influence them.
Also, new decision-making centres will be allocated. This process has already been launched, and those sports associations that earn the most win in it. FIFA, the NHL or the Professional Tennis Association are not interested in hosting the Olympics, and not so long ago, representatives of the NHL even made monetary claims to the IOC. They demanded that the Committee pay large sums of money to the League if it wants its players to participate in the Games.
Also in the 21st century, many countries have already begun to refuse to host the Olympics on their territory due to the need to build new sports facilities and the huge costs of organizing the Games. This means that the winners will be those sports powers and decision-making centres (associations, leagues and unions) that can provide athletes and spectators with the best financial, advertising, career, and moral and ethical conditions.
Robots
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Robots will spread everywhere. They will greet fans at the stadiums as assistants and guards. This is already practiced at the Olympics.
In the US student league (you can find a rating of the best bookmakers for betting on NCAA matches on Meta.reviews), robots are now used in American football training. This helps to significantly reduce the risk of injury.
Drone racing is gaining immense popularity. The Drone Racing League already exists and hosts competitions. UAVs fly around various obstacles at a speed of 130 km/h. Any location is suitable for the tournament, even a subway tunnel or a food court of a shopping centre.
Each drone is equipped with LEDs so that viewers can distinguish them from each other. Also, a camera is installed on each drone: the pilot who controls it needs it and the footage can be broadcast.
Another option for sport with robots is fighting. But not just robots, but huge machines. The first fights have already taken place. MegaBots challenged the robot manufacturer Suidobashi Heavy Industry. They built two cars 4.5 meters high with people sitting inside.
While it looks not too dynamic and very awkward. But the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics back in 2016 could not even take a few steps confidently, and in November 2017 it was already turning somersaults. Therefore, the time for the battles of giant robots can come very quickly.
New Olympic Sports
The 2020 Olympics program already includes sports such as baseball, karate, surfing, rock climbing, and skateboarding. By 2024, maybe we’ll see some of these like cricket, speedskating, ultimate frisbee, parkour, wakeboarding, billiards, chess, beach soccer, futsal, winter swimming, summer biathlon, ballroom dancing, cheerleading, petanque, squash, and water skiing.
Experts agree that national games that have been forgotten (petanque, for example) will gain more and more popularity. Of course, they are changing, the rules are being rewritten taking into account modern realities, but in general, the attention of viewers to them is growing significantly.
