Sports News Headlines for 4 September 2039: Jet Pack Drone Racing League Suspended
Just ahead of the first African Olympic Games in 2040, the latest Olympic sport of Jet Pack Drone Racing has been dealt a blow as two more deaths results in the suspension of the European League.
What might the future of dangerous sports look like? How do we push the boundaries of human endeavour while minimising risks?
TRANSCRIPT
It’s the 4th of September, 2039. My name is Graeme Codrington, and these are your sports headlines.
After yet another fatal crash, the European Jet Pack Drone Racing League has been suspended. Stéphane De Jong, who is the current European champion, was on track to qualify for next year’s Olympics, but a fatal crash between two of the competitors has put the entire league in jeopardy.
Stefan says that he will most likely be moving to the Philippines to join the Southeast Asian Tour, which doesn’t have as many regulations as they do in Europe, and haven’t had any fatal crashes in their entire 10-year history. The International Olympic Committee on their side will relook at including jet pack drone racing at next year’s Olympics in Nairobi, Kenya.
Could Would that be a headline in 2039 at the end of the next decade? There’s no doubt that between now and then, we are going to see some new sports emerging. We’re going to see it mainly, I suppose, in the cyber world, with new competitive digital esports and e-gaming coming into the mainstream environment and probably finding their way into the Olympics. But when it comes to physical endeavours, there’s no doubt that we will enjoy seeing jet packs and human-carrying drones racing around racing tracks sometime in the future.
Flying cars or drones or just jet packs strapped to people’s backs are going to be able to not just transport us, but also become competitive. They’re going to be accidents for sure, and we are going to be looking at the fight between regulations and safety and human’s desire for competition and thrills and spills. And we’ll see whether this prediction comes true by the end of the next decade.
In every industry, we need to be thinking about what might happen as new technologies emerge, but the human spirit for competition, for entertainment, for excitement, for thrills, never changes.
As always, thank you for joining me in the ThrowForward Thursday Studio. I hope that, as always, a scenario has got you thinking about how the future might be different from the present. I hope we’ve stretched your strategic imagination just a little bit, and I hope that you take that strategic imagination back to your business, to your life, to the work that you do every day, and see where it takes you in your industry.
If you’d like some help with doing that, make sure you contact our team at TomorrowToday Global. We love to do this work. I’ll see you next week in the future again.
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Graeme Codrington, is an internationally recognised futurist, specialising in the future of work. He helps organisations understand the forces that will shape our lives in the next ten years, and how we can respond in order to confidently stay ahead of change. Chat to us about booking Graeme to help you Re-Imagine and upgrade your thinking to identify the emerging opportunities in your industry.
For the past two decades, Graeme has worked with some of the world’s most recognised brands, travelling to over 80 countries in total, and speaking to around 100,000 people every year. He is the author of 5 best-selling books, and on faculty at 5 top global business schools.