The Enhanced Games

[DodgyGeezer]

there is a move by an Aussie to hold an olympics style games where doping is allowed - I guess the idea is to see just how far humans can push themselves with (presumably) no rules.

The question is though, as sports fans, or even participants, are we ready to watch/enjoy this or is it something that wouldn't interest you in the slightest?

I have to admit that it would be interesting (morbid curiosity?) to see just how fast a 100m or 200m could actually be run in by an 'enhanced' athlete. What about swimming where someone could be juiced AND have the advantage of a super-slippy swimsuit. Would there be differences in endurance events? How different could things be in throwing events?



https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/swimming/68248821

[Liamjrhodes]

it would be very interesting in a scientific way to see how far the human can go.
But the health implications and the concoctions of chemicals would be a nightmare to make safe for the competitors

[some bloke]

Yeah, I have been wanting to see this for years. Imagine people in the 400m with their thighs bursting into flames as they run it in 28 seconds.

They other thing I would is Joe Public getting a go at the Olympics - a lucky seat number or something, means you'd get taken out of the crowd and have a go at the 100m sprint or shot put, so we have something to compare it to. If everyone competing can throw a javelin 75m and Joe Public comes out and throws it 15, we can really appreciate how good these athletes are.

[frank hovis]

Aren’t they under medical “review” to make they are “safe” to compete ?
Should be interesting to see if there is much variance between “clean “ and enhanced

[Rebew]

I think endurance events is where you would see the largest gains from authorised doping. Sprint events already have such fine margins that I don't think you would see huge improvements from doping but over large distances (hence its popularity in long distance cycling) the effects of doping could be enormous.

The problem comes with who would be willing to compete. No one who competes the the enhanced games will ever be taken seriously in the standard events so why do it for one gimmick that will likely be shut down as soon as an athlete pushes it too far and dies.

At the end of the day, PEDs enhance your performance but they aren't magic. If I took a fist full of PEDs each morning then I'd still be an overweight, middle aged accountant, I wouldn't suddenly be nipping at Eliud Kipchoge's heels in the next marathon. Which elite athlete (who hasn't already been caught doping) is going to enter these events?

[boyse7en]

Didn't they already do this back in the 1970s with the Tour de France? Give the competitors handfuls of amphetamines and see whose heart blows up first?

[C5_Steve]

I heard about this and remembered I'd heard the idea years ago (I'm sure he's not the first person to discuss it....)

[andyA700]

boyse7en said:

Didn't they already do this back in the 1970s with the Tour de France? Give the competitors handfuls of amphetamines and see whose heart blows up first?

Doping was first made illegal in cycling in 1965, but it obviously didn't stop people doping. One of the most infamous, tragic incidents, was when British cyclist Tommy Simpson, died on the ascent of Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France, suffering the effects of heat exhaustion, amphetamines and alcohol. The largest cover ups were those of the 1984 US Olympic cycling team, where most, if not all the cylists had illegal blood transfusions. Then we had the covered up positive tests of Carl Lewis, before he went on to "win" the 100m gold medal at Seoul when Ben Johnson was DQ'd for doping - how ironic.

https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/cyclops/dopes.h...

"Lewis was among the named athletes and Exum's documents revealed that at the 1988 Olympics trials he had three positive results on a combined test for pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine. All were and are banned in sport due to their activity as stimulants."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lewis

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1122465/du...

[wong]

These enhanced atheletes would statistically have much shorter life spans.

[DodgyGeezer]

wong said:

These enhanced atheletes would statistically have much shorter life spans.

the sad thing is that for many athletes the chance of an Olympic gold now vs the possibility of an early death at some point, gold gets the vote (I seem to recall that there was a survey about this many years ago)

[milesgiles]

Yes it’s an old idea

Pretty much any medal winning Olympian is enhanced as it is. There are at least half a dozen substances that are not detectable, and most countries only pay lip service to out of competition testing since it’s not in their interests.

So it’s enhanced vs really, really enhanced

[milesgiles]

Rebew said:

At the end of the day, PEDs enhance your performance but they aren't magic. If I took a fist full of PEDs each morning then I'd still be an overweight, middle aged accountant, I wouldn't suddenly be nipping at Eliud Kipchoge's heels in the next marathon. Which elite athlete (who hasn't already been caught doping) is going to enter these events?

They certainly are magic, by far the biggest guy at my gym trains like a wet towel.

Compare the biggest natural bodybuilders in the world to Mr Olympia. It isn’t even the same sport.

[biggbn]

frank hovis said:

Aren’t they under medical “review” to make they are “safe” to compete ?
Should be interesting to see if there is much variance between “clean “ and enhanced

This is a great point. Also, for a real comparison you'd have to have elite athletes juicing and not juicing, ie demonstrably totally clean v demonstrably juiced, but be of similar skill levels. A cynic might argue we already have a 'juiced' Olympics. It's called the Olympics....

[biggbn]

Rebew said:

I think endurance events is where you would see the largest gains from authorised doping. Sprint events already have such fine margins that I don't think you would see huge improvements from doping but over large distances (hence its popularity in long distance cycling) the effects of doping could be enormous.

The problem comes with who would be willing to compete. No one who competes the the enhanced games will ever be taken seriously in the standard events so why do it for one gimmick that will likely be shut down as soon as an athlete pushes it too far and dies.

At the end of the day, PEDs enhance your performance but they aren't magic. If I took a fist full of PEDs each morning then I'd still be an overweight, middle aged accountant, I wouldn't suddenly be nipping at Eliud Kipchoge's heels in the next marathon. Which elite athlete (who hasn't already been caught doping) is going to enter these events?

Another excellent post

[biggbn]

milesgiles said:

Rebew said:

At the end of the day, PEDs enhance your performance but they aren't magic. If I took a fist full of PEDs each morning then I'd still be an overweight, middle aged accountant, I wouldn't suddenly be nipping at Eliud Kipchoge's heels in the next marathon. Which elite athlete (who hasn't already been caught doping) is going to enter these events?

They certainly are magic, by far the biggest guy at my gym trains like a wet towel.

Compare the biggest natural bodybuilders in the world to Mr Olympia. It isn’t even the same sport.

Nobody, I think, is saying they aren't hugely significant, just that you have to train, eat and sleep bang on yo get the full benefit.

[andyA700]

biggbn said:

milesgiles said:

Rebew said:

At the end of the day, PEDs enhance your performance but they aren't magic. If I took a fist full of PEDs each morning then I'd still be an overweight, middle aged accountant, I wouldn't suddenly be nipping at Eliud Kipchoge's heels in the next marathon. Which elite athlete (who hasn't already been caught doping) is going to enter these events?

They certainly are magic, by far the biggest guy at my gym trains like a wet towel.

Compare the biggest natural bodybuilders in the world to Mr Olympia. It isn’t even the same sport.

Nobody, I think, is saying they aren't hugely significant, just that you have to train, eat and sleep bang on yo get the full benefit.

Exactly, it is like taking normally aspirated elite sports and adding a turbocharger.
The following athletes still hold World records from 1986, I wonder how that is possible given the advances in traing methods, nutrition and technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuriy_Sedykh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Schult

Then we have these women's records from the same era, will they ever be beaten?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Griffith_Jo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marita_Koch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarmila_Kratochv%C3%...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_Reinsch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galina_Chistyakova

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalya_Lisovskaya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Joyner-Kersee

[milesgiles]

biggbn said:

Nobody, I think, is saying they aren't hugely significant, just that you have to train, eat and sleep bang on yo get the full benefit.

In my experience people who are on use it as an excuse to slack off training and diet. A famous study showed even at moderate doses you would get bigger and leaner without tracing at all, compared to do everything correctly as a natty.

[biggbn]

milesgiles said:

biggbn said:

Nobody, I think, is saying they aren't hugely significant, just that you have to train, eat and sleep bang on yo get the full benefit.

In my experience people who are on use it as an excuse to slack off training and diet. A famous study showed even at moderate doses you would get bigger and leaner without tracing at all, compared to do everything correctly as a natty.

Man, I've been around strength and bodybuilding athletes all my adult life. Not many slackers if you wanna be top level. If you wanna look full of water with a puffy face and arms for yer holiday in Magaloof then yeah, take a load of juice and do a minimal of training. But it's not a magic bullet to proper gains, gotta do everything else right for proper gains.

[DrEMa]

I'm not sure there'll be as big an increase in performance in a lot of sports as people seem to think, so few are clean at that level anyway.

The risk in some events would be stupid though IMO. Everyone assumes anabolics when people talk about PEDs. I think the bigger impact would be stimulants and potentially diuretics where weight classes are involved - both have a much shorter action timeframes and are much easier to overdose.

[Randy Winkman]

andyA700 said:

Exactly, it is like taking normally aspirated elite sports and adding a turbocharger.
The following athletes still hold World records from 1986, I wonder how that is possible given the advances in traing methods, nutrition and technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuriy_Sedykh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Schult

Then we have these women's records from the same era, will they ever be beaten?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Griffith_Jo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marita_Koch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarmila_Kratochv%C3%...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_Reinsch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galina_Chistyakova

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalya_Lisovskaya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Joyner-Kersee

I follow athletics and there is occasionally talk of deleting the (female) records but then it gets bogged down into arguments about exactly which ones and from what date. Also the argument of whether you can be 100% sure that the "new" record could be shown to be legal beyond doubt.

On this new proposal, like some others I think it would be a bit of a novelty as and event but not something sustainable. There wouldn't be a significant enough number of people would would want to train and compete on an ongoing basis. Sport is about competition and watching one person swim 50 meters 0.5 seconds faster than the clean world record against 2 other people wouldn't be that good to watch. Friends of the competitors plus a few sports nerds would be all you'd get I think.