Enhanced Games boss predicts multiple feats beyond world records
Max Martin, co-founder and chief executive officer of Enhanced, delivers a speech during a news conference on the eve of the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas, where athletes are allowed to take any drugs they wish (ETIENNE LAURENT) The head of the Enhanced Games on Saturday predicted multiple world records will be "beaten" at this weekend's drug-fueled event, even if the feats will not be officially recognized due to the banned substances athletes are taking. Max Martin, chief executive officer and co-founder of the divisive multi-sport event where athletes are free to dope, said weightlifters Beatriz Piron and Arley Mendez had already surpassed world records in training. "Hopefully they'll be able to do it tomorrow as well, and then we'll see a few more," he told a press conference on the eve of the Games.
"My guess is we'll see quite a few. " Sprinters, swimmers and weightlifters competing at the first ever Enhanced Games have spent the past four months in Abu Dhabi being administered combinations of testosterone, human growth hormone, peptides and anabolic steroids -- all banned by events like the Olympics. The event has been denounced by multiple athletics governing bodies and anti-doping agencies as dangerous and against the spirit of sport.
But participants, lured by prize money up to $1 million for beating world records, will include Olympic medallist swimmers James Magnussen, Cody Miller and Ben Proud, who have all taken drugs. Former 100m sprint champion Fred Kerley will compete without drugs at the event. In addition to taking usually banned substances, the swimmers will be allowed to wear the types of "supersuits" that led to many world records falling around the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but were subsequently prohibited.
Rick Adams -- the Enhanced Games' chief sporting officer who previously spent over a decade with the US Olympic team leadership -- said he respects that "specific international organizations" will not accept any records set Sunday, even if they are broken by clean athletes like Kerley. "But it is uncontroverted that if one of our 50m freestyle... moves through that water in less than 20.
88 seconds, they have moved through that water faster than any other human being in history," he said. "Whether you or others want to chronicle that in a certain fashion, we'll leave that up to others, but there will be no doubt that 20. 87 is quicker than 20.