Health experts slam doping-friendly Games

PARIS — Athletes at the Paris Olympics later this month will be tested for performance-enhancing drugs, but at a competition plotting to rival the Games, doping will be the point.

The Enhanced Games, currently planned for late next year, will not test competitors for drugs, but instead encourage them to take advantage of medical advancements to break world records.

The organizers say that, by freeing athletes from the tyranny of anti-doping agencies and embracing technology, the Enhanced Games aim "to safely evolve mankind into a new superhumanity".

But, researchers who have studied the effects of performance-enhancing drugs told reporters that they fear the Games will push athletes to dope at such extreme levels, they could risk heart attacks, strokes or even death.

It remains unclear if the Enhanced Games will actually be held at all. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has dismissed the whole idea as "bollocks".

But, momentum seems to be building after retired Australian Olympic swimmer James Magnussen signed up earlier this year, and the competition announced millions of dollars in funding from investors, including Peter Thiel, the libertarian billionaire from the United States.

Astrid Kristine Bjornebekk, a researcher at Oslo University Hospital, said she was shocked to find out there was even a chance this "extremely dangerous" idea could become reality.

'Juice to the gills'

Bjornebekk, who has studied how anabolic steroids can damage the brains of weightlifters, warned that the Games would "trigger use with no boundaries".

Illustrating how the concept could incentivize such use, Magnussen told a podcast he will "juice to the gills" to get the $1 million on offer for breaking the 50m freestyle world record.

As well as swimming, the Enhanced Games also plan to host track and field events, gymnastics, weightlifting and combat sports.

Bjornebekk warned that mixing steroids and combat sports, such as mixed martial arts, "significantly escalates" the risk of someone dying during the competition.

To avoid such risks, a spokesman for the Enhanced Games told reporters that all athletes will be "continually supervised" once they sign up.

This will include health checks, psychological screening and monitoring using new technology, such as a "real-time portable echocardiogram," the spokesman said.

However, Dominic Sagoe of Norway's University of Bergen, who has led research which found that one in three steroid users become addicted, warned that the consequences of a successful Enhanced Games "could spill into society".

He feared that children, inspired by their sporting heroes, could seek out steroids, or that "roid rage"-induced violence by aspiring athletes could spill over into the streets.

Excessive use of these steroids has been found to cause liver or kidney damage, high blood pressure and cholesterol, infertility, mental health problems and a higher risk of cancer.

But, athletes would likely take a cocktail of drugs, potentially including growth hormones, blood doping using erythropoietin (EPO), insulin and more, including some treatments to offset the side effects of others, Sagoe said.

The most "dangerous combinations of drugs will likely land the best performances," Bjornebekk warned.

'Tool for coercion'

The Enhanced Games spokesman said that "side effects and adverse events" from performance-enhancing drugs "could arguably be avoided with proper clinical supervision and expert guidance".

A new medical commission and scientific advisory board are still hammering out exactly how the competition will monitor athlete safety, he added.

John William Devine, an expert in sports ethics at UK's Swansea University, said that — despite billing itself as increasing athlete freedom — the Games could turn into a "tool for coercion".

"If you remove the limit on performance-enhancing drugs, will athletes be pressured by coaches, by teammates, by governments — or even by sponsors — to take risks that they otherwise wouldn't have taken?" he asked.

Matthew Dunn, a steroid researcher at Australia's Deakin University, was concerned about athletes getting drugs on the black market and using them without supervision.

But, he acknowledged that despite best efforts, competitions like the Olympics "are not 100 percent clean".

"It would also be interesting to see what the human body can achieve when it is 'enhanced'," he added.

So could the Enhanced Games one day overtake the Olympics?

"I think the general public still likes the idea of achievements occurring through ability, hard work and dedication — and not through a syringe," Dunn said.

AFP