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Resistance to Technological Innovation in Elite Sport
Patrick Trabal
To cite this version:
Patrick Trabal. Resistance to Technological Innovation in Elite Sport. International Review for the
Sociology of Sport, SAGE Publications, 2008, 43 (3), pp.313-330. �10.1177/1012690208098255�. �hal-
01471540�
RESISTANCE TO TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
IN ELITE SPORT
Patrick Trabal
Paris X-Nanterre University and Higher School of Social Sciences
(EHESS), Paris, France
Abstract In 1998, the French Canoe and Kayak Federation embarked on the creation of a new
kayak. However, there was concern it would not succeed in its venture due to ‘social resistance’. This
article aims therefore to reveal the social characteristics of those showing opposition to technological
innovation, as well as those who are calling for it, and to determine the reasons behind reticence. A
questionnaire was handed out to elite athletes, and interviews conducted with national coaches. The
results show that, contrary to preliminary hypotheses, all athletes (including those of flat water racing)
generally view such a project in a favourable light. The coaches express different types of ‘resistance’
– a term which should be used with caution, as it suggests legitimacy and faith in progress – which
have less to do with the social position of the actors than with criticism of past and present policies of
the Federation.
Key words • kayak • pragmatic • resistance • technological innovation
1. Introduction
Sport and science share the same ideal: to continually transcend the limits of the
human being. This association between the Coubertin credo ‘Citius, Altius,
Fortius’ and the aim of the technological sciences has been widely analysed in
particular by Guttmann, for whom the development of modern sport is directly
linked to that of science and technology (Guttmann, 1978). In these conditions, it
could be construed that the introduction of technological innovations into elite
sport would occur without a problem. However, this is far from the truth. The
dialogue between the sporting world (athletes, trainers, technical staff) and that
of research scientists into performance is a difficult one. First, there is the issue
of an innovation being validated by international federations renown for their
conservatism, which leads them to endorse legislation banning any innovation
likely to change even slightly their respective sport. The range of constraints that
are imposed on the International Federation of Rowing Organizations, the
International Swimming Federation and the International Cycling Union in order
to legislate activity following the respective introductions of movable handles
(roller-skiff), immersion in backstroke, and bikes like that of Graeme Obree, have
INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT 43/3(2008) 313–330 313
© Copyright ISSA and SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
http://irs.sagepub.com
10.1177/1012690208098255
begun to be studied (Duret and Trabal, 2001). Second, adoption of the innova-
tions by the athletes themselves is not achieved without tension. This can be
accounted for by the athletes’ focus on results and therefore their tendency
towards a pragmatism based on empirics, as well as communication difficulties
between athletes and scientists, the latter concerned entirely with validating
hypotheses, statements or material only after a theoretical circumlocution which
is highly incomprehensible in its content as much as its pertinence to those ‘out
there in the field’. But is this opposition sufficient in elucidating the way innova-
tions are distributed in elite sport?
These questions can be studied by analysing the social conditions linked to
the distribution of products susceptible to improve performance even before these
products are validated by scientists. The success of the ‘nasal breath-right device’
is an interesting case in point: only after a large advertising campaign did scien-
tists, wanting to ascertain its efficiency, prove it was questionable (Villiger,
1996). We can also attempt to approach the issue by following, within the sport-
ing world, the path of an innovation as it seeks wide adoption. The latter course
has been chosen for this study.
The background instigating the research presented here is to be found in the
above questions as well as in a discussion with a member of the National Canoe
and Kayak Federation, during which was broached a plan to create a new boat
designed for flat water races, a single-seater kayak (K1). A new design is said to
guarantee better stability and therefore offer a certain advantage to the athlete. Of
course, the gains are minimal, but the smallest of differences can prove to be
decisive in a close competition. However, attempts at a canoe and then a two-
seater kayak which proved in vain have made the Federation member ask the
following question: will the boat be used this time around?
This question was interpreted by members of the Federation in light of reflec-
tion on social resistance to the introduction of an innovation. In an interview in
December 1996, a technical staff member shared some of his concerns with us,
including the desire to ‘move things along’ and to ‘gather together top athletes
around this project’. This initial testimony highlights two difficulties in the
Federation. In the first place, these words seem to indicate an inclination towards
a relative opposition to progress (otherwise there would be no need to ‘move
things along’) at least as far as the organization of flat water races are concerned.
Second, his mention of top athletes (TA) seems to designate them as part of the
‘opposition’. Just like the concern shown by the innovator in our first meeting,
these two pieces of evidence suggest that the story of the K1’s development is a
turbulent one.
In this interview, we retrace the story from the years 1991–2, which marked,
according to our witness, a turnaround, a change. His narration of the history up
to this date designates the ‘opposition’, of which the athletes constituted the front
line. ‘Resistance’: the word has been unleashed. ‘They are quite happy to go
faster, but as long as we don’t speak to them about research or anything new. In a
nutshell, they are ready to agree to the higher performance as long as not too many
things are challenged.’ Similar comments were used in reference to the trainers.
Policy boiled down to using ‘what works elsewhere’, which means ‘always being
one Olympiad too late. The world champion’s boat is taken and decreed the best
314 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT 43(3)
boat.’ The interview ends with two decisive pieces of information. First, it is
emphasized that since 1992, ‘attitudes are changing’. Athletes and coaches are
apparently showing less ‘resistance’. Second, in this world considered hostile to
innovation, exceptions can but be noted. ‘Those who come from wild waters’ are
said, however, to be promoters of innovation and change, unlike the ‘flatties’ (flat
water racers). Populations developing within the field of ‘descent’ and ‘slalom’
are qualified as ‘very receptive’ to new projects and, according to our witness, it
is expected that, in the course of our study, we be received with quite some enthu-
siasm by young people. Since, in actual fact, our work consists of ‘identifying and
understanding how social resistance to technological innovation is divided up and
on what it is based’, we had to meet with the whole spectrum of actors.
2. The Question and Several Approaches
Understanding resistance to technological innovation in the canoe-kayak field
brings into play readings based on several different approaches. When dealing
with the profile of sportsmen and women of canoe-kayak, problems entailing dis-
tribution of innovations and conflicts therefore created, and the history of instru-
mentation in sport, the social sciences have approached these questions within
many different traditions. We will endeavour to explain these in order to deter-
mine the theoretical issues of the problems and to draw up our hypotheses.
There are few sociological studies on canoe-kayak. In fact, the only study
which focuses on the conceptions of athletes is that of Lapierre (1981) to which
our federal correspondents refer. The theoretical model which inspired this study
is that of Bourdieu, which was applied to the sports field by sociologists like
Pociello (1983, 1999; Pociello et al. 1981). The main aim is to distinguish the
social agents and to show the relationship between their tastes (or distastes) and
their social positions. This work is therefore based on the idea that ‘the agents
susceptible to choosing a sport and to committing themselves to it present with-
in themselves cultural characteristics predetermining their choices’ (Defrance,
1995). The sporting arena therefore exemplifies the link between the athletes’
choices and the distribution of their social capital. Within one sport, the type of
commitment would itself be subject to the athlete’s social background. Like the
work by Pociello on rugby (1983), that of Lapierre (1981) on canoe-kayak
belongs to this school of thought. The different social groups perfectly overlap,
according to this author, with the difference between wild water and flat water
racing. On one hand, sportsmen belonging to a privileged social-cultural back-
ground, will choose a ‘gliding’ culture demanding analysis and mastery of the
natural elements in order to surf with the wave and in which adaptation to a
continually changing situation is a priority when choosing the right gesture to be
carried out, and finally in which change, research into the latest equipment to
save on physical exertion, and fast processing of information to succeed will be
regarded favourably. On the other hand, sportsmen whose social capital is lower,
will prosper in flat water racing, a discipline which places a high priority on long
and continuous muscular exertion, in races where the exterior conditions remain
stable (demarcation of the space with buoys removes orientation concerns or
TRABAL: RESISTANCE TO TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN ELITE SPORT 315
‘reading the river’), demanding as essential competencies regular effort, and the
capacity to uphold and use one’s energy in a planned fashion. As a result, we can
formulate an hypothesis, since the research in question suggests isomorphism
between positions occupied by agents in the social space (resulting in particular
from their scholastic and cultural capital) and their tastes in sport (as determined
here in a preference for flat water racing, descent or slalom): the individuals
progressing in wild waters, particularly the slalom racers, would be among the
promoters of the new kayak and those practising wild water racing would remain
in the background of this project. The explanation model follows on naturally
from the theory of the distinction: the low capital of the agents progressing in line
racing, measured as much in its volume as in its structure (low scholastic capital),
their choice of a sport which necessitates a repetitive movement and a high level
of physical exertion would lead them to consider technological innovation (which
moreover they do not understand well) as a disruption, much akin to a diversion
in the Pascal sense, the essence of their sport being summed up as follows: effort,
work over a duration, self-sacrifice. We shall test this hypothesis by trying to
examine how sportsmen from different specialities deal with technologies.
To do so, we have to clarify the ways used to put technological innovations
into perspective. Sociological works concerning new technologies and their dif-
fusion originate in different traditions. In order to pinpoint the principal schools
of thought, we will distinguish between anthropological conceptions, theses of
the Frankfort school, those from defenders of a ‘technical system’ and finally the
work developed out of the sociology of action. To simplify this presentation, we
will only concentrate on the main ideas in these theories. The ‘anthropological’
conception is often associated with the name of Leroi-Gourhan (1964) which
aims at underlining the close relationship between the human being and the tool:
‘technique is considered the continuation of the human being as body and
reason’, to quote Gras’s criticism (1992: 14). As Scardigli also analyses it (1989),
this theory leads us to posit that technology is inherently part of the future of
humankind. Indeed, by situating technology within an historical perspective, it is
considered that its use and its future are inscribed within the womb and that it
boasts the ability to create its own destiny. In this way, not only we forget to take
into account the social processes at the end of which the actors will temporarily
or definitively determine the future of innovation, but we refute them. Based on
these findings, the adherents to the Frankfort school have emphasized that the for-
gotten power struggle in the debates on technology is not an accident. This would
result from the will to bury social conflicts which are, however, legitimate, in the
name of rationalization inherent in the natural evolution of humanity. Science and
technology appear therefore to be essentially ideological (Habermas, 1968) and
their link with sport, which according to J.M. Brohm would fill the same func-
tions (Brohm, 1983, 1992), would serve the ambitions of those whose chief inter-
est is to amass profit. ‘This perspective boils down to considering the outbidding
tactics on the sport equipment as a tangible sign of a power fight where the rich
win through’ (Duret and Trabal, 2001: 160). In these conditions ‘when the will to
perpetually transcend leads to instrumentalizing the body itself, “the domination
of man over man” means not only totalitarianism founded on the mastery of
nature (Marcuse, 1964) but on the deprivation of human freedom which leads as
316 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT 43(3)
