With things like banning any equipment including clothing and shoes... Or with cycling giving one standard mass manufactured piece. And then a pile of standard replacement parts and standard tools. All bought from cheapest supplier randomly distributed to participants.
Similarly in football, by studying your opponents in previous matches, so that you can identify weaknesses during the match, even if playing in isolation.
If your times are, say, 20% or more above the absolute top times for a given course, you've got a long way to go by improving yourself - on just about any bike whatsoever. The super expensive parts make low single digit differences.
And the reason why is the pro game makes a lot of money on endorsements. If a top pro is forced to use a club that is different from what amateurs need then the gravy train could stop.
But yes, golf is really hard and for amateurs the innovations help make the game more enjoyable. But for pros it’s just too much.
> I was allowed a modern click shifter and modern disk brakes
Doubt you'd see a bike equipped with anything else at the Tour.
I'm not at top level and never will be. If I want to go faster there are many things I can do that are more effective than playing what my bike is made out of.
of course the above is a guess, if someone makes such a frame I may try it and decide it is worth it.
Yet, at the Olympics, the gear is the same for everyone.
Btw, I can't remember where, but I heard that, in the old editions of the Tour de France not all gears were allowed, shifters for example weren't allowed even though they were available to amateurs.
From a bit of reading, it sounds like there's a fairly widespread impression (or at least suspicion of) cheating. And that enforcement is quite weak, because the authorities care more about preventing public scandal than about preventing actual cheating.
That aside, regarding cycling, standard mass manufactured piece? In one size that all have to fit to?
Naa...