Clean Swimmer Wins Gold at All-Drug Enhanced Games

Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.

LAS VEGAS — On Sunday, a man who took nothing stronger than electrolytes and bananas won the men’s 50m backstroke at the Enhanced Games, defeating two pharmacologically optimized rivals in 24.21 seconds and walking off with $250,000, a gold medal, and the closest thing Las Vegas has produced to a public-health endorsement since it started offering free gonorrhea screenings to tourists.

Hunter Armstrong, a two-time Olympian, accomplished this in a purpose-built arena located, with no apparent shame, in the parking lot of Resorts World casino. The Enhanced Games are the brainchild of co-founder Max Martin, who spent the run-up to Sunday’s event predicting that “quite a few” world records would fall. The night produced one (1) unofficial mark and a dozen personal bests, several of them set by athletes who had come out of retirement specifically for the prize money and the legal pharmaceuticals. Martin described the result as “live sports” and “something you can never plan for,” which is a remarkable concession from a man whose entire job description is planning exactly that.

Enhanced Games’ parent company, Enhanced, sells many of the same substances used by its athletes directly to the public, meaning the event functions simultaneously as a sports competition, infomercial, and supply-chain demo. On Sunday, it functioned mostly as a product recall. A man who had not bought anything from the company gift shop swam faster than two men who had.

Armstrong declined to taunt his opponents and was therefore unavailable for the evening’s most quotable performance, which fell instead to Fred Kerley, an “unenhanced” sprinter who took the 100m in 9.97. “Man, they got to do better than that,” Kerley said, currently serving a suspension for missing drug tests. “They need to train a little harder. Get on that shit a little bit more.” Reporters present say it was unclear whether he meant the steroids or the training, and Kerley, when pressed, suggested both.

Investors in the project include Donald Trump Jr. and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who together backed the event on the theory that there are paying audiences for chemically enhanced athletes lifting heavy objects in a casino parking lot. Sunday’s results modestly tested the theory. Snatch hopefuls Beatriz Piron, Boady Santavy, and Wesley Kitts all failed to break records, even after organizers granted the two men a fourth attempt, which in weightlifting is the baseball equivalent of giving someone an additional out and watching him ground into a double play anyway.

Hafthor Bjornsson, the actor known as “The Mountain” on Game of Thrones, attempted to break his own deadlift record of 510 kilograms and could not. He has now lost to himself twice in a calendar month, a record only one person on Earth was eligible to set, one he appears to be defending with vigor.

The lone official triumph belonged to Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev, who “beat” the men’s 50m freestyle world record in 20.81 seconds. The quotation marks belong to Gkolomeev, the time does not count, and the mark does not appear in official record books because Gkolomeev was wearing a polyurethane “supersuit” banned from competition since 2009. He collected the $1 million bonus anyway. “Maybe next year I’ll break it again,” he said, referring to a record he had not in fact broken this year.

Health experts have repeatedly described the entire operation as a public-health hazard with potential for “life-shortening and fatal consequences,” citing heart, liver, and kidney risks and the absence of long-term study on the combinations of substances being administered. Enhanced Games officials responded that “all medications were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration,” a statement true in the way “I am not currently on fire” is also true.

Martin also acknowledged that “certain injuries” had prevented some athletes from participating. The injuries were not specified, the athletes were not named, and the press kit no longer mentions “quite a few” of anything.

A second event is planned for next year. Organizers say they have learned a great deal about competition under enhanced conditions, the chief lesson being that whatever advantage the pharmaceuticals provide is currently insufficient to beat Hunter Armstrong at the backstroke.