Enhanced Games: Kristian Gkolomeev swims record 50m freestyle time on opening day
The majority of the 42 athletes participating used performance-enhancing substances, and Improved Games said “13 athletes set personal bests.”
The event was played in front of a curated crowd of approximately 2,500 people and tickets were not sold to the public.
On the track, American former world champion Fred Kerley, one of the athletes competing ‘clean’, won the men’s 100 meter race in 9.97 seconds; this was short of her personal best of 9.76.
British swimmer Ben Proud, who won the silver medal in the men’s 50-meter freestyle at the 2024 Paris Olympics, won the 50-meter butterfly with a time of 22.32 seconds. This was 0.05 seconds off Andrii Govorov’s world record but faster than his personal best (and the British record of 22.74 seconds).
“We all know what we came for. And it’s a world record. And it’s frustrating to be so painfully close,” Proud said.
Another British Olympic swimmer, Emily Barclay, won the women’s 50-meter freestyle in 24.09, nearly half a second slower than the world record.
Weightlifter Hafthor ‘Thor’ Bjornsson, who plays the character The Mountain in the TV series Game of Thrones, was also one of the participants in the competition, but he could not break his own deadlift record of 510 kg.
Drugs used in Advanced Games must be legal and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
It contains testosterone, growth hormone, peptides, anabolic steroids and other substances prohibited in sports.
Those behind the event argue that development already exists in elite sport, but that it is done secretly and without transparency, and that it is safer to make it open so it can be monitored.
However, many sports governing bodies have publicly reprimanded athletes for choosing to compete in the games, and some sports governing bodies have banned athletes from participating.
The IOC and Wada described the Enhanced Games as “immoral” and a “dangerous and irresponsible concept”, while World Athletics president Lord Coe said everyone involved was “a fool”.
The project was founded in 2023 by entrepreneurs Aron D’Souza and Maximilian Martin and is supported by billionaires Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. It received the support of leading investors such as.
Martin predicted athletes would break “quite a number” of world records in the event.
