THE JUICY GAMES

WADA has a similar line to Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), they have condemned the concept of the Enhanced Games with the agency saying that it is dangerous, unethical and damaging to sport. Sport Integrity Australia

Yet Kristian Gkolomeev has shaved 0.02 seconds off the world record 50m freestyle swimming as opposed to a year ago in the Paris Olympics, where he finished 5th, according to Listen ABC. Listen ABC also says he took home a $1 million bonus for smashing the record while on the juice.

James Magnuson said ‘he got jacked’ but when he competed in the same event, he didn’t smash any records. The ex-Olympian came out of a 7-year retirement. Saying he transitioned to a healthier sport as opposed to a dirty sport and that the money was more of an incentive James interview channel 7

Coach Brett Hawke, Listen ABC says both ‘athletes’ have been through an enhanced protocol to obtain and focus solely on smashing records. When we say protocols, we're talking prescription drugs that are prescribed by doctors; however are banned by WADA hit list.

The coach also said it dramatically improves recovery time after training.

The underlying argument/reason  that the ‘for” camp has is, ‘Where can we take human potential?’ The driving motto is catchy, ‘Live enhanced’.....

Now I feel that this is not my place to criticise the rights and wrongs, and to be frank I couldn’t care. The part that irritates me is the money/healthcare (like the opposite to Robinhood) side to all of this. As James openly admits, he has medical check-ups every week…. Just for a competitive race, so he could potentially ‘win’ and smash a record, and get a bonus of a 1 million American dollar cheque on top of the $250k that they will automatically receive. Apparently, this is partly funded by the 1789 Equity Group and Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, according to The Observer, just to name a few.

People look up to these role models and might be encouraged to take substances, all because of their public image. The issue with this is it is unlikely to be a controlled setting, unlike James, who has a ‘doc’ check-up once a week.

So not being in a controlled setting could potentially have a more damaging response, essentially blurring the lines on what is okay and what’s not for an amateur and their health.

The founder, Aron D'Souza tells his vision is ‘...to push the limits while their (athletes') health and drug intake is steadily monitored for safety.’  The question I want to ask is, who's paying for these “steadily monitored, health tests?”. This is according to the ABC. Furthermore, Mr Aron goes on and says ‘The Enhanced Games are very different. They're run by capitalists, who believe in the 

future….’, okay, so what he's saying is that it's a self-interested investment… Anyway, that topic is for another day. 

Coming back to the point, the organisers said to The Guardian, Bryan A Graham rather than penalise athletes for using banned substances, normalise and study their use in a medically supervised environment. Again, it comes back to the fact that the ‘amateur’, who doesn't have the clinical trial, medical backing, might just juice the juice when it’s the wrong type of juice or go overboard on the juice.

The organisers again do mention that Drugs must be legally prescribed and athletes must be medically fit to compete, all to see where the human potential can go? To do this, it's going to take time, money, resources, and researchers. (The Guardian, Bryan A Graham) 

However, the other Guardian paper talks about the risks, saying it's underestimating, incorrect and misleading about the risks and gives a more in-depth explanation and examples, such as heart attacks.

Another avenue that hasn’t been explored is, if the enhanced athletes, coaches or possibly even scientists want to re-enter back into their given sport/work it could be very nearly impossible. Like  Andrii Govorov, the Ukraine Butterfly world record holder says “This is a one-way ticket for me.” adding “I’ll never come back, no matter what,” refering to the enhanced games. in a TIMES article.

History, with Lance Armstrong, everyone’s heard of him. Everyone knows what he did. He’d be saying right now, ‘why wasn’t this invented 14 years ago?!’ It would have been a real money spinner for him. The fact was not really finishing first up a mountain on a lot of EPO and whatever else. Let's be honest here, it was highly likely that everyone was on some kind of juice. According to Ethics unwrapped ‘During the seven years that Armstrong won the Tour de France, 20 out of the 21 top three finishers were also found to have doped at some point in their careers.’ An example of this is 

Pantani in another Guardian paper highlighting skepticiasm or a more recent BBC article questioning accusations.

The reason Lance was highlighted  is to point out that ‘enhancement’ has been going on for years. A 2011 study on biological passports ​​ indicates an estimation of an overall blood doping prevalence of 18% (Retrospective study). In the same study they also highlighted that the higher prevalence were female athlete’s.

Yet the enhanced games so far have NO female athlete’s.Enhanced 

An ethical debate, it’s pretty clear that Mr Aron is creating an industry, with throw-away comments like ‘capitalism’... Now that’s fine if it’s all self-funded  but when one of the groups (1789 Equity Group) is led by Donald Trump Jr. and billionaire Peter Thiel, then it raises questions on how far this could potentially go. 

The issue is these opportunities will only be given to people who have financial backing; essentially, the more money you have the better you'll be, so the better you'll be the more money you’ll make. Same small cohort. Enhanced

Mr Aron, who took a law degree at Oxford University, says, "It will always be a tragedy if something does go wrong." In this instance, he's referring to ‘signing waivers’ (BBC)

Imagine the ability to make people into human guinea pigs, to reduce things like human aging (BBC) and breaking human limits (thinking of the hulk). (Listen ABC, Jonathan Green) all for pharmaceutical benefits and more money, what lengths are these cyborgs going to go to just for that?

Pro’s: 

Could the researcher’s find safer levels of ‘doping’ or equivalent and in turn regulate it better? 

Could it redefine a cleaner sport? 

Could it help natural sport be better recompensed?

Borderline questionable: 

Good for the US pharmaceutical industry bad for the rest of the world in pharmacology? 

Is it classified cheating, when everyone’s cheating? 

Con’s: 

Like I said earlier, role modeling at an amateur level could be extremely dangerous and a younger generation could take more risk to achieve that elite level.

Fact: Enhanced Games athletes will compete in XY or XX divisions as opposed to male and female TIMES
Funny fact, Armstrong is competing in the Enhanced games in swimming, supposedly.