Hi tech equipment in sport and athletes results

Athletes over the years have continually improved upon world records, in part, due to better diet and excerise regimes, however technological advances in the equipment used such as the swim suits now available and the special clothing and helmets worn by cyclists etc. add a certain element of improvement also. On one hand this is clearly an advantage over athletes from the past and even some of today that do not have access to the same technology, but on the other hand it can be simply viewed as removing barriers such as resistance from air and water to see how fast a human can actually go in the respective sports. The questions are what is the goal thaat we want to measure? How far we have come from early athletes and how fast we can actually go? Are we deluding ourselves that we have actually improved at all, when it might all be attributable to technology gains?