Brain racers

IN OCTOBER 2016, inside a sold-out arena in Zurich, a man named Numa Poujouly steered his wheelchair up to the central podium. As the Swiss national anthem played, organizers of the world's first cyborg Olympics hung a gold medal around Poujouly's neck. The 30-yearold, who became paralyzed after a bicycle accident in his teens, had triumphed in the tournament's most futuristic event: a video-game-like race in which the competitors controlled their speeding avatars with just their minds.