Defined: What are the ‘Enhanced Video games’ – and is mainstream sport underneath menace?

On Wednesday, Workforce GB Olympic silver medallist Ben Proud introduced his retirement from ‘conventional swimming’ with a view to compete on the controversial Enhanced Video games subsequent Could.

However what are they? What are their restrictions? How have anti-doping companies and governing our bodies reacted? And the way a lot of a menace is that this occasion to mainstream athletics?

What are the Enhanced Video games?

The Enhanced Video games are the brainchild of an Australian entrepreneur known as Aron D’Souza. He got here up with the concept some years in the past however formally put out his intention to truly get an occasion getting into 2023. That occasion, the Enhanced Video games, will happen in Las Vegas from Could 21-Could 24 of 2026.

The plan in the intervening time is that it will not be an enormous occasion like an Olympics or a World Championships. You are just some sports activities.

Swimming is certainly one of them, however short-distance swimming, sprinting and weightlifting, these are the sports activities which are being mooted as being within the schedule for the Enhanced Video games.

D’Souza says the rationale he got here up with the concept of the Enhanced Video games was: firstly, that it ought to be as much as elite, skilled athletes. They need to be accountable for how they appear after their our bodies, what they eat, what they put of their our bodies. He is an advocate of that.

He additionally has had some irritation with the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) about how they run themselves and are in command of all sports activities, as he sees them. He is on the lookout for another, mainly. That is primarily what the Enhanced Video games are.

Are there any restrictions relating to performance-enhancing substances?

Opposite to some stories, it isn’t an entire free-for-all on the subject of substances that athletes can use to compete within the Enhanced Video games.

When the Enhanced Video games have been first mooted, lots of people have been considering athletes would be capable of use quite a lot of substances which are banned underneath the WADA code – the World Anti-Doping Company.

Yearly or so, they provide you with a banned record and it’s totally clear. It includes various levels of gear, from steroids all the way down to meals dietary supplements, and so on. However they’re banned.

They’d be deemed to be having an unnatural affect on the physique’s potential to coach, to heal, to compete. That is the rationale for WADA having their banned record of medicine and substances.

So far as the Enhanced Video games go, they nonetheless have to come back underneath the foundations and rules of the state of Nevada within the USA, and likewise the federal authorities within the USA as effectively.

They arrive underneath, primarily, FDA guidelines, the Meals and Drug Administration of america. So, for instance, arduous class A medicine like cocaine and heroin usually are not allowed for use.

Something that’s unlawful underneath the FDA’s guidelines can’t be utilized by athletes wishing to compete within the Enhanced Video games.

I feel that’s one thing that has turn out to be barely misplaced during the last 12 months or so. Nonetheless, that doesn’t rule out an terrible lot of gear that will usually be banned underneath the WADA code, the banned record that they’ve.

So, athletes will be capable of take some performance-enhancing substances they’d not be capable of take have been they to be competing for nationwide federations in nationwide and worldwide competitors that’s signed as much as the WADA code.

Sure, there are restrictions, however they’re much fewer and far lower than they’re in case you are competing at an Olympic Video games, FIFA World Cup, world championships of all of the various sports activities as effectively.

How have anti-doping companies and governing our bodies reacted to the occasion?

The very best quote I’ve ever heard concerning the Enhanced Video games from anyone who’s anti-Enhanced Video games has come from the top of the US Anti-Doping Company, a person known as Travis Tygart.

He known as it a ‘clown present’. So that offers you some sense.

That is from anyone in a really, very excessive place within the main anti-doping company on this planet. His views are most likely echoed with barely completely different language by most, if not all, anti-doping companies around the globe.

Ben Proud, as many British athletes from many sports activities have been, was an advocate of UK Anti-Doping’s Clear Sport Week, so they’re actually dissatisfied by this.

Jane Rumble, UKAD’s chief govt, mentioned: “It is incredibly disappointing that any British athlete would consider competing in an event that flies in the face of the true spirit of sport. Any decision by any athlete to compete in the Enhanced Games risks undermining the values of a sporting landscape that prizes hard work, integrity, pure talent and 100 per cent clean sport.

“It is a panorama UK Anti-Doping works arduous to guard, so it’s with deep concern for all clear athletes, and all those that love sport, that the occasion might go forward, with any British athlete saying they are going to participate. It’s an enterprise that diminishes, relatively than ‘enhances’, all these concerned.” 

And then you come to the ultimate arbiter when it comes to anti-doping, which is WADA. All national anti-doping agencies are signatories to WADA.

WADA are already very sceptical about the Enhanced Games. They deem it to be a dangerous idea and a dangerous event to be held when they are trying to make not just elite sport fair, but also safe.

It’s the health and safety of all those who intend to compete, who hope to compete, that is the main reason for these rules under WADA. They will be really disappointed.

The language used towards the Enhanced Games has been very stern.

Meanwhile, a UK Sport spokesperson said: “UK Sport condemns every thing the Enhanced Video games stands for within the strongest potential phrases. We consider it dangers compromising athlete well being and welfare.

“We are engaging with our colleagues at Aquatics GB as a matter of urgency to determine Ben Proud’s suitability to receive public funds.

“It’s clear nevertheless that any breach of anti-doping guidelines is opposite to the insurance policies which any athlete should adjust to to obtain UK Sport funding.”

How much of a threat is this event to mainstream sport?

At the moment, in reality, it is not a huge threat to the likes of the Olympic Games and world championships, whether it be in swimming, athletics or all the various other sports as well.

It has to be made clear that if this does go ahead in Las Vegas next year, it is going to be a very small event.

We don’t yet know the idea of how many athletes would be at this event, but we’re not talking tens of thousands like there are at the Olympics. We’re probably talking hundreds at best that may decide to compete in the Enhanced Games. It is small. It is niche.

It is clearly getting a lot of attention because of the title Enhanced Games, the relaxing of the rules compared with those athletes that come under the WADA code, that some performance-enhancing substances may be able to be taken.

That’s given it a degree of notoriety and a niche point in the sports agenda at the moment. So in the short term, it is a threat, especially when you’ve got so many anti-doping agencies and WADA coming down hard against this, but also prominent sportsmen and sportswomen, past and present, who are anti the Enhanced Games.

Some of Ben Proud’s team-mates, including the Olympic champion Adam Peaty, who’s become a very vehement proponent against doping.

He gave a very emotional interview after the Olympics last year in Paris to Sky Sports where he spoke about cheating and performance-enhancing substances in swimming, how it really irritated him and how disappointed he was by it and that he would never go down that route, encouraging everyone he knew not to get involved in that. There’s been a lot of traction against the Enhanced Games.

Clearly, for those athletes that are becoming involved and committed to it, there is a financial incentive. We don’t know the exact figures across the board that have been mooted, but we do know that some financial incentives were given to some of the first people who were committed to the Enhanced Games. You’re talking life-changing sums of money in US dollars.

So there is a financial incentive for people there to go to the Enhanced Games, but how many people can be paid that kind of money? How many people will choose to step away from mainstream sport? And also, if you do, to never, ever have the chance to compete at an Olympic Games or the world championships in whatever sport you take part in.

If you take part in the Enhanced Games, you rule out, as an elite sportsperson, your chance of ever having the ability to try and compete for your country to win an Olympic or world championship medal. You can never stand on a podium with your country’s flag and hear your national anthem.

You will be barred from competing in those if you sign up to the Enhanced Games.

Which athletes have agreed to take part?

The list of athletes who’ve signed up for the Enhanced Games is not exhaustive, in fact it’s quite short. Probably one of the most high-profile names is Ben Proud, because he is a well-known British swimmer, and the biggest name is the former Australian world champion James Magnussen, who has committed to the Enhanced Games.

In terms of some other names that are well known within swimming, because at the moment it is mainly swimmers who seem to be making the transition over to the Enhanced Games, Kristian Gkolomeev of Greece did a private event for the Enhanced Games in February this year, where he unofficially broke the world record for the long-course 50m freestyle.

It is not a world record because it wasn’t at a World Aquatics event, World Championships or Olympic Games, it was at a private event funded by the Enhanced Games, so it does not count.

Gkolomeev is probably the most high-profile name out there because he got a huge financial reward for that event, almost $1m for doing so.

Andriy Govorov, who is a Ukrainian swimmer, is also signed up for the Enhanced Games. He is a serious swimmer with great pedigree behind him in terms of medals at major championships, but other than that the list is relatively sparse as a lot of athletes either have taken heed of the warnings from their national federations, the various national anti-doping agencies and from high-profile people around sport.

Lord Coe, the President of World Athletics, said the Enhanced Games were a “moronic” thought.

So in the intervening time, regardless that the Enhanced Video games have this occasion occurring in Las Vegas in Could subsequent 12 months, the record is fairly small of confirmed athletes.

The hope from the Enhanced Video games is that they are going to have sportsmen and sportswomen from swimming, athletics and weightlifting, however in the intervening time the record may be very brief.