But sport is by definition set up so what is measured is the result we care about. We would perhaps not care so much about the "vicious cycle" if the incentive

But sport is by definition set up so what is measured is the result we care about. We would perhaps not care so much about the "vicious cycle" if the incentives were aligned with "good" research. If cancer gets cured, at the end of the day I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over how. But the concern is the incentives are misaligned in favour of exploiting the metrics instead of "good" research.