Missile Magnussen shot out of the water by world swimming
Swimmer James Magnussen’s drug-taking ‘juice to the gills’ mission for the lucrative Enhanced Games has been derided by world authorities.
Swimmer James Magnussen’s drug-taking “juice to the gills” mission to take part in the lucrative Enhanced Games to help science, has been derided by world authorities.
World Aquatics chief executive Brent Nowicki slammed the Australian Olympic silver medallist for his involvement in the Enhanced Games – which will have no official drug testing – as “a farce” and “shortsighted”.
Mr Nowicki said Mr Magnussen faced being an outlier from the sports world and would not be welcomed back into swimming competition. He said no other swimmers had yet joined Mr Magnussen in expressing their intentions to compete in the Enhanced Games.
Officials of the Enhanced Games, due to be staged sometime in 2025, say they are expecting competitors to agree once the Paris Olympics are completed this year.
But Mr Nowicki warned: “my honest opinion, if you are going to partake in that activity, you shouldn’t be involved in any sport ever again. Once you have crossed that bridge, there is no coming back’’
On the sidelines of the sports summit SportAccord, being held in Birmingham this week, international sports executives were sceptical that the Enhanced Games would kick off despite the deep pockets of the organisation’s venture capitalists, including Australia’s Aron D’Souza.
“Who will line up in the pool to race Magnussen? You can’t have a race of one,’’ said one sports official.
This week Enhanced Game officials called for athletes to line up, saying on social media: “Olympic swimming hero James Magnussen will star in Ridley Scott Associate and Rob McElhenney’s documentary about the Enhanced Games” with a link to be picked to “star alongside James” and to be paid $100,000.
Mr Nowicki likened the reasonings behind the Enhanced Games as “smoke and mirrors” similar to the use of science vessels being used in the oceans killing whales for scientific purposes.
“Maybe there is a science purpose behind it (the Enhanced Games) or maybe there is not. You can find a lot of smoke and mirrors in this world. This is one of them. It takes us back years. It cuts against what we are trying to do.’’
He said the concept was irresponsible.
“It’s going to give or potentially give reason to somebody who’s considering doping; who can say, look it’s safe now, James did it. Or hey, maybe there is a way to do this with this new technology. Look, they have their personal reasons, and he’s entitled to his opinion and why he does things. I think it is extremely shortsighted to tell me that one of the priority reasons behind this is science and proving the effects of this.”
Mr Magnussen, now 32, told the Weekend Australian Magazine this week that his goal is to get his body functioning, performing and recovering like it was in his early twenties, using the benefits of a cocktail of chemicals.
He claimed it wasn’t a goal to be superhuman, but rather a quest to decrease the effects of ageing, increase hormones and reduce recovery period to he can perform like he was at his peak. In the process he believes he may be able to achieve a long held ambition to break the 50m freestyle world record.
Nonetheless the Enhanced Games has shaken up some officials who believe the World Anti Doping Agency has to fund deep research into drug testing – especially in the field of blood doping where it is believed some athletes have been able to exploit the current anti doping system.
Magnussen makes the point that he believed a quarter of his opponents at major championships were taking illegal drugs and that some major sports have lax testing regimes, while he wants to show it drug taking can be done safely.
“Those boys have been dabbling in the dark arts for a long time,” Magnussen told the magazine.
“It has allowed athletes in these leagues to perform at their peak into their late thirties and early forties.”
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