Hearing through headphones

I read this story in the Mercury News how High School Sports teams need to make rules about iPods. It would be sad to me to see a high school cross country race to see everyone wearing headphones. I understand that headphones are part of running culture. In a marathon lots of people wear headphones, but it would be sad to see that in the Olympics. I know that it is not about the pure nature of the sport, but there is still something to be said about not were headphones everywhere. There should be some part of culture that is immune to the MP3 player.