The steroid Olympics fell short of its own finishing line

{"text":[[{"start":7.05,"text":"The writer is a science commentator"}],[{"start":9.4,"text":"The Enhanced Games, held in Las Vegas at the weekend, were informally billed as the “steroid Olympics”. The no-holds-barred sporting competition drew headlines for allowing track athletes, swimmers and weightlifters to use performance-enhancing drugs (Peds). The edgy experiment was meant to shatter world records and force a rethink of what it means to be the strongest or fastest human on Earth."}],[{"start":34.3,"text":"In the end, the thing that was most pumped up was the marketing. The uncertainty about what these games represented — for science, for sport, for human achievement — reached its apotheosis in the men’s 100-metre sprint final. The winner, 31-year-old two-time US Olympic medallist Fred Kerley, clocked up a time — without doping — that would have placed him last at the 2024 Olympic final."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":58.349999999999994,"text":"By churning out a series of decent but unexceptional results, which also saw a non-enhanced sprinter triumph in the women’s 100-metre final with a lacklustre time, the Enhanced Games fell short of its own finishing line. While one swimming world record was broken and more than a dozen athletes set new personal bests, the steroid Olympics were not really about making the best better. For the most part, the best were absent."}],[{"start":82.39999999999999,"text":"But for the less-than-best and those past their best, Peds can make them feel they still belong on the starting blocks. This was performance enhancement as a kind of DEI initiative — and one that mostly served to make current “non-enhanced” Olympians look more superhuman."}],[{"start":97.8,"text":"The inaugural Las Vegas extravaganza, with a total prize pot of $25mn, featured 42 athletes who could choose to use drugs approved by the FDA for medical purposes but banned in sport, such as anabolic steroids. It was organised by Enhanced Group, a start-up with ties to the Maga movement (backers include Peter Thiel and a group led by Donald Trump Jr). The venture, blending sport, entertainment and drug sales, aims to tap into online “wellness” trends, with a sleek website selling Enhanced-branded products, including testosterone and peptides (a class of small proteins that includes insulin and weight-loss jabs, but which are increasingly marketed online). "}],[{"start":141.65,"text":"As in the real Olympics, all eyes were on the 100-metre finals. Kerley’s win, earning him $250,000 in 9.97 seconds, came after a race marred by false starts. He had previously promised to “destroy” Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58s but failed to beat his own PB of 9.76. The second-placed sprinter ran a time over 10 seconds, a barrier that some elite college athletes are breaking. Kerley, who won silver for the same event in 2021 and a bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics, was given a two-year ban from regular competition in March, for being absent for unannounced doping tests. He ran this race drug free, according to anti-doping testers invited by the organisers."}],[{"start":191.4,"text":"The women’s 100-metre final was won by non-enhanced Tristan Evelyn, of Barbados, in 11.25 seconds, shy of the world record of 10.49 seconds. The one world record broken, the 50-metre freestyle swim, earned a million-dollar payout for the Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev, who has never won an Olympic medal. The record will not be officially recognised, due to doping and Gkolomeev’s banned skinsuit (the swimmer refused to disclose his drug regimen). "}],[{"start":221.25,"text":"Kim Wolff of the Drug Control Centre at King’s College London, an accredited anti-doping laboratory, has warned that substances like testosterone and synthetic erythropoietin (EPO) offer an unclear competitive advantage while also carrying risks. Testosterone can lead to cardiovascular and hormone complications, as well as mood swings and depression. EPO, the banned substance famously favoured by cyclists, can push up cardiovascular risk."}],[{"start":252.3,"text":"This might explain why so few of sport’s finest were willing to participate — although some might now relish the prospect of an easy, drug-free payday. At a post-event press conference, a spokesman for the games praised the event as “sport as it’s never been seen before, massive personal bests, an extraordinary world record. That’s a success.” He welcomed having both enhanced and non-enhanced winners, and noted the athletes passed health checks."}],[{"start":278.3,"text":"The Enhanced Games website still boasts: “Our athletes aren’t endorsers. They’re evidence.” Of what, exactly? That doping alone, even with the best medical care, will not guarantee triumph. Faster, higher, stronger is still about strategy, not steroids; about perseverance and psychology, not peptides. For old-fashioned (and perhaps naive) sports fans like me, that alone is a winning message."}],[{"start":311.55,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780151888_1291.mp3"}