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The year is 2050, and genetic enchancement is now commonplace in society. People can currently opt to improve their bodies through the form of gene packages. These are geared towards increasing certain traits, such as strength, speed, hand-eye coordination, eyesight, etc, by manipulating certain genes in their biological makeup. An individual can pay for one package, or several to be implemented incrementally, with expense and quality being varied.

These changes don't take affect immediately, as the body needs time to adjust to these enchancements. It can take a period of five years for the results of the gene therapy to take place in a person's body. This creates a problem when it comes to sports, as you would have certain people adapting to the changes quicker than others, or benefit from simply having had more enchancements than others, or having paid for higher quality enchancement. This can lead to an unbalanced playing field in various sports, like football, boxing, basketball, and others.

Does the situation as it stands leads to imbalances among players, creating unfair advantages? How can leagues implement genetic enchancement in a way that prevents this?

Take lessons from the auto-racing industry. Auto-racing is an inherently technologically driven sport. Your 6 year old Camry will not compete with a modern stock car or F-1 car... period.

The first thing you'll notice has happened in auto-racing is that every auto sport is carefully tailored with a specific set of rules stipulating what is allowed. There are a handful of "unlimited" classes, such as those we find for land-speed records, but they are the exception to the rule.

Each class will have to adapt as new abilities come to light. F-1 ran through a phase like this recently. It had to add additional rules regarding what cars could do because the manufacturers all agreed that it was getting too expensive to win.

You'll also see rules placed on how you can use things. F-1 currently permits some very limited regenerative braking. You are only allowed to use it to pass someone. Why? Because passing makes the sport more exciting (more revenue for the races), and because it was found that was a decent way to limit the new technology such that driver skill still mattered.

You see these things in other sports (weight classes or gender classes, for instance), but auto-sports is so wed to technology that it provides a great set of examples for what to do once other sports become dominated by a technology.