June 25, 2026 • 20 mins
The Enhanced Games were meant to shake up sport, letting athletes use performance enhancers to break records and make big money. Enough time has passed for us to properly digest the morally grey area that encompasses the event, and compose our thoughts.
We have many of them. We talk about this and much more:
- Athletes openly using performance-enhancing substances
- Prize money that dwarfs Olympic payouts, how can it be?
- And the awkward twist…clean athletes were still winning
Is this the future of sport? Or does it completely miss the point of why we love it? Plus, the Olympics might be heading into full reality TV mode: Ninja Warrior as an Olympic sport? Please no. Leave the Olympics alone!
Harvey Norman love sport. Supporting Australian athletes at all levels, from grassroots to the world stage for over thirty years. SHOP Furniture, Bedding, TVs, Fridges, Vacuums, Laptops, Mobiles and more instore or online!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Jel me, jel me, jelm me. Can we believe the
year's almost over?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What it's an attack where in June it's basically July,
which means tax time. It's all over, it's done.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
It's all over, end of financial year, end of.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What am I getting you from? Critics? It's an ara ring.
We've discussed this.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
We've discusted it length. We've discussed it at length.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
By the way, I'm Abby Delmy, welcome to do sports.
Sports and he's sold differently. We already know George is here. George.
I'm going to start off with my good sport because
I know at the moment you'd be particularly interested in
the celebrity intersection with cartoons, particularly of the Pixar variety. Allah,
your girl Taye deciding that she's going to do toy story.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, toy story.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Louis Hamilton, for the first time ever, has signed official
trading cards of his Pixar car's character.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
No he hasn't, No, he hasn't.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
How flawless is that characterization? Sir, Lewis Hamilton is a
car and he's signing them and leaning in, Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Fantastic, Lewis, Sir, friend of the pod, friend of the bird.
I mean you've actually breathed the same air as him
for like three minutes, so that actually makes him a
borderline producer of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
He's a friend of he's a friend of yep.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
And I love that. So you're saying good.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Sport one hundred percent and more the point. I love
the intersection of cartoons with anything in real life. Give
it to me, put it in my veins. No, it's
a best like all I'm doing at the moment, like hello,
space jam that thing holds lebron, get out, get out.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
It's just Jordan.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's the Jordan Jordan. And again, my darling, darling eldest going, mummy,
can I play basketball with Michael Jordan? Maybe you're more
likely to play with bugs Bunny. Swing with that, Swing
with that, because I don't think MJ's He also doesn't
look like that anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Shape, he doesn't look like that anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But that's all right. And also like some of the
things that they did in that movie just don't hold
up anymore in terms of like Lalla Bunny, Oh, do
you get away with that anymore?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I don't think you can. I don't think you can.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I feel that Louis the biggest, the biggest impediment for
louis playing with a Michael Jordan type. Now, I'm gonna
say this, Louis, and if you play this back when
you've won like fifteen brown Lows, that's okay because your
athletic prowess is going to be in other areas not
necessarily heightened.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Whoa, they're in the ninetieth percentile I have, you know.
But also in a really fortuitous twist of fate, Dad
bore twenty three like Jordan, So it makes it really
convenient anyway from Lewis Hamilton, Oh I love it felt
like they're really unnecessary.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Similar ish but not in another television show that children adore.
I have been told also that I adore which is
my good sport?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Remember Jellmy, remember that time in Paris where you know,
Australia gave a red hot crack to that new sport
breakdancing at the Olympics. No one really ever talked about
it. It wasn't really a headline or.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Not bringing it back Georgia. It's dead, it's gone, well.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
It's gone.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Breakdancing has has gone, so officially they're not bringing that
sport back, but we now know.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Which is a good sport decision.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, but we now know officially one of the sports
that's replacing it at LA twenty eight, and that is
Ninja Warrior.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I have it as a good sport.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I knew your reaction would be this, and you're like,
I don't know about that. Legit, jelm me legit. They
are bringing Ninja Warrior to the LA Olympics. The LA Olympics,
So anyone who doesn't know Ninja Warrior is like that
cross between Parkour and Wipeout.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And it's like, I love Ben Fordham, I love Rebecca Madden.
Was a very successful show. You know, the old stop
kicking them, they're already dead. That's the Olympics. That's the
Olympics screaming for relevance by adding Ninja Warrior as a sport.
(04:19):
I'm sorry if you are an Olympic gold medalist for
being a Ninja Warrior. End it now, hang end it now.
I'm I'm so mad. I'm so mad.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Leave it alone. But can I say, what if?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
What if?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
What if we won gold in it? What if we
won gold in it and the person who won gold
is already a gold medalist of ours? Steve Hooker does
Ninja Warrior for fun, for fun.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Real good, how old Steve Hooker.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Now I'm gonna say he's in.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
His entry, Yeah yeah, yeah, but he yeah. Our gold
medalist Pole Vaulter also also loves Ninja Warrior, And I'm like,
what if what if Hooker was representing us?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
What if? Hand on heart? I would sooner had the
Olympics only be the sports that we're going to see
at the Glasgow comm Games than this absolute atrocity of
expansion for relevance?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Can I still?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Can I say somewhere Queen Liz Lizzellis has just flinched
again because Marie is there and the Diamonds still can't
get a run.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
It makes me so mad. You're polluting, you're polluting the pure.
Leave it alone?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And isn't that a segue? Isn't that a segue to
our main discussion?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Abs jell me today, because dear listener, we have been
waiting to talk about this. We've been holding off so
we can gather our thoughts and our feelings. You might
be able to guess we've got a few. You talk
about polluting the pure, we're discussing the enhanced games.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
That's next George, You and I have happily been doing
this podcast for a few seasons now, but if you
cast your mind back to one of our very first episodes,
it was discussing this new theory, a new concept, if
(06:19):
you will, that was actually headed up by an Australian,
Aaron Desuza, who had this idea of what happens if
we acknowledge and accept that over forty percent of athletes
are doping. So let's create and enhanced games where these
athletes are encouraged to use substances that enhance their performances
(06:41):
that are legal in the US, but not legal when
performing at Olympic level. And what we're going to do
is reward them really handsomely with a lot of money.
And you and I thought, pie in the sky, this
shit will never happen. Honestly, we just thought, what the
odds of this house is going to happen? They've been
(07:03):
run and one dodging the enhanced games has happened in
Viva Las Vegas, where else where people like to gamble,
and this time they were gambling on their health. And
it was a cross section of what I think our
entire society is interested in at the moment. It was flashy,
(07:26):
it was headlines, it was money, and it was also
maxing be it, oh yes, peptides, be it. Look max.
Everyone is looking to buy your hack, And essentially this
was a shopping market for it where you could see
a lot of athletes that were more than likely past
(07:47):
their prime in their thirties deciding to dope and to
show you what safely they can achieve. I can't believe.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
That that's the keyword right though.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Safely safely in inverted commerce, like safe safely for now,
safely for now.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We will get into potentially the true.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Justifications or reasons for why the enhanced games do exist.
And hey, I'm not going to beat tinfoil hat, but
the words big farmer is going to come up.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That's going to come up.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
But when it comes to the actual event itself and
the events, the races that were held, I have to
say that as someone who on the podcast Gentleman, when
we first talked about the enhanced games, I had my
hand up been like, I'm.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Probably gonna watch it. I'm gonna watch it. It's gonna
be a spectacle. Da da da da.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I did not watch this in real time, and I
would say that it made you know when you see
the divers and it's like make the smallest splash possible.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
That was them.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
They won every diving event known to mankind, no over
rotation because there was just zero ripple.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Zero ripple, zero cut.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Through was was was my overall review review of v mhances.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It was more of a ripple at the start when
James Magnuson came out and said I'm going toduce myself
to the gills than when he dived into the pool
in a golden suit as the first enhanced athlete. And
in saying that, I think James and I will declare early.
I know James partner very well Rose, so I'm very
aligned with the Magnisons as they are now married. But
(09:20):
I will say he's been smart in that he straight
up was like, I'll take the money. I'll take the
money to endorse it. So from the very beginning, instead
of going I'm relying on the performance to get money
from this, he was relying on his ability to be
the missile and being okay with taking punches for the
fact that he's a doped athlete. The biggest reaction I've
seen to this has actually been from current athletes and
(09:44):
Olympians feeling like what they do is being cheapened by
what is happening here. And what I found super interesting
was there were clean current Olympic athletes competing at the
Enhanced Games for money. So it wasn't the steroid Olympics.
(10:05):
It was some people having done that, but others like
Fred Curley who's still competing at the highest highest level
of the one hundred meters and said that he was
going to take a world record. He didn't was clean
what was at this event, and still took home the
prize money. And the prize money is a big part, right,
because you win one of these events, it's two hundred
(10:25):
and fifty k US. You win gold for Australia at
the Olympics, you take home twenty k AU.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That's the thing in terms of the money.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I can understand why athletes are wanting to do this,
especially retired athletes, especially athletes who are maybe at the
in the twilight stages of their career, but.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
They can make more in one of these and they
can their whole swimming career.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
George, Yes, but the whole point of these games, right
is to you know, bio hack the future and longevity
and to like, you know, see what the athletes can do.
This is something that we might actually be able to
mass produce this pepti and you can have these kind
of results and you can biohack your life and live
to one thousand eventually.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Right, They were literally selling the products the athletes were using.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, but I would say that in terms of an
advertisement for those products, the first iteration of this event
failed because you had the clean athletes beating the athletes
that were quote unquote juice to the gills, like James Magnuson.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
He came last in his events.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And that's nothing against James, but I do think that
having athletes there who are like purely like panned on hard,
I'm here for the money.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Great.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
However, that then also affects the games in terms of
people wanting to watch it because there's less buy in.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
There's less buy into that.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I'm going to counter your argument, Okay, in the okay,
the way that the Enhanced Games got around that was
sharing a lot of athletes being like, at thirty eight,
this person has swam a PB after not competing for
five years. So at the end of the day, James
Magnuson now is not in the same physical shape and
form that he was to be going, you know, to
(12:02):
an assence again whatever game. I think it was Rio
where he got silver right, London, London, do you remember it?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Vivid point by point one point one of a second.
So yet with one one hundredth of a second up
against that Alah, that frenchman who actually, I mean this
is not.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
He looks like he looked like Magnuson. Now remember how
gigantic that man was.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
He looked like he could eat him.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, you could look like you could eat him.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
It leaves Rent free in my brain.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So I think they were more leaning into these are
athletes that are returning to personal bests or shaving like
seconds off their times because of what they're putting into
their body.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
But for me, like, don't be wrong, I think the
whole concept is flawed and a bit problematic. And you're right,
it didn't make a splash, it made a ripple. But
what I will say is it has put an enormous
amount of pressure on the IOC to have a look
at how they remunerate athletes.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Oh agree, and they should, and we've we've spoken about
that at length on this podcast, that that needs to
be looked at. But I would also say that, you know,
some of the rhetoric in the lead up to this
from our Olympians and from current current swimmers as well.
I mean Cam McAvoy, we call him the professor for
a reason. He's actually biohacked how you get faster and
in a clean way, you know, like he is the
world record holder for the fish.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Less way less.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like technically there was a world record
that was broken at these Enhanced Games. Obviously it doesn't count.
He's in a super suit. He's just to the Gils macaboy.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Supersuit's also a point well, any time that you're at
an Olympics and you're like, how has that record stood
since the early two thousands. Ah, yes it was a
super suit record.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
But this is what I'm saying in terms of like
what we can actually get behind and what we can
get excited behind. It's no feats that happened at the
Enhanced Games. Most recently the Australian swimming trials ahead of
the Pan PACs and also for Glasgow. Sam Short won
the eight hundred meters in the third fastest time of
all time. The two are only other faster times than
(14:04):
him in history, both made in supersuits. So we are
at the precipice of another golden era in the pool,
which seems crazy because we just had the retirement of
Bronte Campbell. You know, we don't even Thorpe's not been
in the pool for decades.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
But Sam Short had food poisoning, right.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
I think so, I think that's him.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
In the lead up to some of the trials and
we were like, you, poor bugger, you've got yeah wow, okay, yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's like you're that good and you're sick right now.
But he's won everything, including the eight hundred meters in
the third fastest time.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Of How do you feel about how normalized peptides have become,
not necessarily in sport, but in society.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Oh, I mean, I think it's just like the the
whole idea of self care, right, like we've gone, we've gone,
next letter.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I don't think. I don't think society conjecting.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yourself is something where you can't legally get a mid Australia.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Well, it's like it's not what it is, but it's
that whole obsession with like self optimization and you know,
doing things to make you know you the essentially a
bionic person because I don't know, are we up against
the AI robots yet? I robot isn't technically a thing yet.
Guys like, that's not actual real life yet. Elon's trying
to make it that way, but it's.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Not there Smith, is that what you're just referenced yet?
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Great?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah with Will Smith?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
No one talks about that enough. Everyone's like, oh the terminator.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Overall, I was like, I robot gave us the blueprint,
gave us the blueprint, and yes, I say, this is
someone who's already said the words big farmer.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So I'm sounding crazy, right, how.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I just I And something that Arnie Tipmas spoke about
in relation to the Enhanced Game is the reason why
we love sport is it can be a vehicle for
so much good and you know, reflects society and working
hard to achieve something and dedication and all the wonderful
(15:53):
qualities that go into being that. And the Enhanced Games
basically goes. But you can cheat, you can take something
that makes it easier, and.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
You still don't get the results. You still don't get
the results.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
If you're not. I think that if it's hard because
they don't have a control, there are too many variables.
You don't have the same body and the same athlete
that are swimming identical times, and one of them then
maxes with enhancing and the other one doesn't like it's
the experiment is flawed in itself in that it's attracting
(16:28):
athletes at the tail end of their career that want
to make money. But I think they would argue in
terms of it's been listed forever billion dollars, the enhanced Games,
and the concept itself is going to be I think
it's going to be successful. But I think whether or
not you find it morally challenging is whether or not
you like sport for the spectacle and you don't really care,
(16:49):
or you like sport for the idea that good things
come when you work hard, and it is harder to
work when you're not enhanced.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Well, not that I love will make a habit of
quoting Clivicular on this podcast The Looks Master. However, the
ROI Return on Investment, I learned that through his interview
the ROI on the Advanced Game The Advanced the Enhanced Games.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I think for someone like Desuza.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know Ozzie Desuza, who was in part one of
the biggest creators of this. I think eventually you're right,
it will be financially successful. It will financially be viable.
I just hope, and I actually don't think from what
we saw from our evidence right now, which is the
only the inaugural running of the Enhanced Games, I just
don't see people buying in in the same way because
(17:36):
the athletes themselves won't buy in. They'll know, especially if
you've got athletes who were at one stage clean, You're
asking them to have a different narrative from one that
they've lived, and that's crazy. They can pretend they can
talk it all up that they want, but at its heart,
you won't have that. And the only thing between us
and the I Robot robots is authenticity, and people.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Will find that out.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I think athletes will compete and buy in if they
watch that athletes were in Vegas are allowed to re
enter their usual fields and their usual competition because the
money George is too attractive, even if the brand itself
as a clean athlete is not.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I don't think the IC can do that though. I
don't think they'll let them. I don't think that. I
think it was separate.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
That's the question. That's the question. Because the other thing
is if you have never tested positive to drugs and
you have been tested like you know, I think Fred
Gurley was tested like eleven times through the process. He
was a clean athlete competing. It's the NRL of it
all going. If you go be part of rugby three sixty,
you can't come back here. Wait what like it's a
(18:42):
convenient rule? But how what what do you mean just
because I've taken money? I don't know. I you know
how I feel about the Olympics, and you know that
I feel it must be pretected all costs.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I feel like the good sport basport of it all.
We've got a further glimpse.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I think Ninja Warrior being included in the Olympics is
more of a crime than the Enhanced Games.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
WHOA, that's that's crazy from you, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Leave the Olympics alone. Leave it alone. At least the
Enhanced Games are going. Look, we see what you're doing.
We're gonna go do something over here.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Okay, okay, fun fact? Do we have a fun fact
other than.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Leave the Olympics alone, leave it alone. Okay, what's our
fun fact?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
You have one?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
No fun fact is Caitlan Clark ranks as number two
in overall US basketball jersey sales period. Really, so it goes,
Steph Curry, Caitlyn Clark, Lebron James.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
No way above Lebron? What above Lebron? Oh my god,
oh my god, believable. Louis needs to be saying, can
I play with Caitlyn Clark?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Outsold Lebron, Luka, Doncic and even Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Jeez, love it. We love that. Love it, love that
love fun fact, buy into that, Buy into that. Everyone.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
We've actually got to go.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
We gotta go, We gotta go until next week.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Biggest spot
Jel me, jel me, jelm me. Can we believe the
year's almost over?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What it's an attack where in June it's basically July,
which means tax time. It's all over, it's done.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
It's all over, end of financial year, end of.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What am I getting you from? Critics? It's an ara ring.
We've discussed this.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
We've discusted it length. We've discussed it at length.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
By the way, I'm Abby Delmy, welcome to do sports.
Sports and he's sold differently. We already know George is here. George.
I'm going to start off with my good sport because
I know at the moment you'd be particularly interested in
the celebrity intersection with cartoons, particularly of the Pixar variety. Allah,
your girl Taye deciding that she's going to do toy story.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, toy story.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Louis Hamilton, for the first time ever, has signed official
trading cards of his Pixar car's character.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
No he hasn't, No, he hasn't.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
How flawless is that characterization? Sir, Lewis Hamilton is a
car and he's signing them and leaning in, Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Fantastic, Lewis, Sir, friend of the pod, friend of the bird.
I mean you've actually breathed the same air as him
for like three minutes, so that actually makes him a
borderline producer of this podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
He's a friend of he's a friend of yep.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
And I love that. So you're saying good.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Sport one hundred percent and more the point. I love
the intersection of cartoons with anything in real life. Give
it to me, put it in my veins. No, it's
a best like all I'm doing at the moment, like hello,
space jam that thing holds lebron, get out, get out.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
It's just Jordan.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's the Jordan Jordan. And again, my darling, darling eldest going, mummy,
can I play basketball with Michael Jordan? Maybe you're more
likely to play with bugs Bunny. Swing with that, Swing
with that, because I don't think MJ's He also doesn't
look like that anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Shape, he doesn't look like that anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But that's all right. And also like some of the
things that they did in that movie just don't hold
up anymore in terms of like Lalla Bunny, Oh, do
you get away with that anymore?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I don't think you can. I don't think you can.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I feel that Louis the biggest, the biggest impediment for
louis playing with a Michael Jordan type. Now, I'm gonna
say this, Louis, and if you play this back when
you've won like fifteen brown Lows, that's okay because your
athletic prowess is going to be in other areas not
necessarily heightened.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Whoa, they're in the ninetieth percentile I have, you know.
But also in a really fortuitous twist of fate, Dad
bore twenty three like Jordan, So it makes it really
convenient anyway from Lewis Hamilton, Oh I love it felt
like they're really unnecessary.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Similar ish but not in another television show that children adore.
I have been told also that I adore which is
my good sport?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Remember Jellmy, remember that time in Paris where you know,
Australia gave a red hot crack to that new sport
breakdancing at the Olympics. No one really ever talked about
it. It wasn't really a headline or.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Not bringing it back Georgia. It's dead, it's gone, well.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
It's gone.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Breakdancing has has gone, so officially they're not bringing that
sport back, but we now know.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Which is a good sport decision.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, but we now know officially one of the sports
that's replacing it at LA twenty eight, and that is
Ninja Warrior.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I have it as a good sport.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I knew your reaction would be this, and you're like,
I don't know about that. Legit, jelm me legit. They
are bringing Ninja Warrior to the LA Olympics. The LA Olympics,
So anyone who doesn't know Ninja Warrior is like that
cross between Parkour and Wipeout.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And it's like, I love Ben Fordham, I love Rebecca Madden.
Was a very successful show. You know, the old stop
kicking them, they're already dead. That's the Olympics. That's the
Olympics screaming for relevance by adding Ninja Warrior as a sport.
(04:19):
I'm sorry if you are an Olympic gold medalist for
being a Ninja Warrior. End it now, hang end it now.
I'm I'm so mad. I'm so mad.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Leave it alone. But can I say, what if?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
What if?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
What if we won gold in it? What if we
won gold in it and the person who won gold
is already a gold medalist of ours? Steve Hooker does
Ninja Warrior for fun, for fun.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Real good, how old Steve Hooker.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Now I'm gonna say he's in.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
His entry, Yeah yeah, yeah, but he yeah. Our gold
medalist Pole Vaulter also also loves Ninja Warrior, And I'm like,
what if what if Hooker was representing us?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
What if? Hand on heart? I would sooner had the
Olympics only be the sports that we're going to see
at the Glasgow comm Games than this absolute atrocity of
expansion for relevance?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Can I still?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Can I say somewhere Queen Liz Lizzellis has just flinched
again because Marie is there and the Diamonds still can't
get a run.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
It makes me so mad. You're polluting, you're polluting the pure.
Leave it alone?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And isn't that a segue? Isn't that a segue to
our main discussion?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Abs jell me today, because dear listener, we have been
waiting to talk about this. We've been holding off so
we can gather our thoughts and our feelings. You might
be able to guess we've got a few. You talk
about polluting the pure, we're discussing the enhanced games.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
That's next George, You and I have happily been doing
this podcast for a few seasons now, but if you
cast your mind back to one of our very first episodes,
it was discussing this new theory, a new concept, if
(06:19):
you will, that was actually headed up by an Australian,
Aaron Desuza, who had this idea of what happens if
we acknowledge and accept that over forty percent of athletes
are doping. So let's create and enhanced games where these
athletes are encouraged to use substances that enhance their performances
(06:41):
that are legal in the US, but not legal when
performing at Olympic level. And what we're going to do
is reward them really handsomely with a lot of money.
And you and I thought, pie in the sky, this
shit will never happen. Honestly, we just thought, what the
odds of this house is going to happen? They've been
(07:03):
run and one dodging the enhanced games has happened in
Viva Las Vegas, where else where people like to gamble,
and this time they were gambling on their health. And
it was a cross section of what I think our
entire society is interested in at the moment. It was flashy,
(07:26):
it was headlines, it was money, and it was also
maxing be it, oh yes, peptides, be it. Look max.
Everyone is looking to buy your hack, And essentially this
was a shopping market for it where you could see
a lot of athletes that were more than likely past
(07:47):
their prime in their thirties deciding to dope and to
show you what safely they can achieve. I can't believe.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
That that's the keyword right though.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Safely safely in inverted commerce, like safe safely for now,
safely for now.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We will get into potentially the true.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Justifications or reasons for why the enhanced games do exist.
And hey, I'm not going to beat tinfoil hat, but
the words big farmer is going to come up.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That's going to come up.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
But when it comes to the actual event itself and
the events, the races that were held, I have to
say that as someone who on the podcast Gentleman, when
we first talked about the enhanced games, I had my
hand up been like, I'm.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Probably gonna watch it. I'm gonna watch it. It's gonna
be a spectacle. Da da da da.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I did not watch this in real time, and I
would say that it made you know when you see
the divers and it's like make the smallest splash possible.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
That was them.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
They won every diving event known to mankind, no over
rotation because there was just zero ripple.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Zero ripple, zero cut.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Through was was was my overall review review of v mhances.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It was more of a ripple at the start when
James Magnuson came out and said I'm going toduce myself
to the gills than when he dived into the pool
in a golden suit as the first enhanced athlete. And
in saying that, I think James and I will declare early.
I know James partner very well Rose, so I'm very
aligned with the Magnisons as they are now married. But
(09:20):
I will say he's been smart in that he straight
up was like, I'll take the money. I'll take the
money to endorse it. So from the very beginning, instead
of going I'm relying on the performance to get money
from this, he was relying on his ability to be
the missile and being okay with taking punches for the
fact that he's a doped athlete. The biggest reaction I've
seen to this has actually been from current athletes and
(09:44):
Olympians feeling like what they do is being cheapened by
what is happening here. And what I found super interesting
was there were clean current Olympic athletes competing at the
Enhanced Games for money. So it wasn't the steroid Olympics.
(10:05):
It was some people having done that, but others like
Fred Curley who's still competing at the highest highest level
of the one hundred meters and said that he was
going to take a world record. He didn't was clean
what was at this event, and still took home the
prize money. And the prize money is a big part, right,
because you win one of these events, it's two hundred
(10:25):
and fifty k US. You win gold for Australia at
the Olympics, you take home twenty k AU.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That's the thing in terms of the money.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I can understand why athletes are wanting to do this,
especially retired athletes, especially athletes who are maybe at the
in the twilight stages of their career, but.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
They can make more in one of these and they
can their whole swimming career.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
George, Yes, but the whole point of these games, right
is to you know, bio hack the future and longevity
and to like, you know, see what the athletes can do.
This is something that we might actually be able to
mass produce this pepti and you can have these kind
of results and you can biohack your life and live
to one thousand eventually.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Right, They were literally selling the products the athletes were using.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, but I would say that in terms of an
advertisement for those products, the first iteration of this event
failed because you had the clean athletes beating the athletes
that were quote unquote juice to the gills, like James Magnuson.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
He came last in his events.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And that's nothing against James, but I do think that
having athletes there who are like purely like panned on hard,
I'm here for the money.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Great.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
However, that then also affects the games in terms of
people wanting to watch it because there's less buy in.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
There's less buy into that.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I'm going to counter your argument, Okay, in the okay,
the way that the Enhanced Games got around that was
sharing a lot of athletes being like, at thirty eight,
this person has swam a PB after not competing for
five years. So at the end of the day, James
Magnuson now is not in the same physical shape and
form that he was to be going, you know, to
(12:02):
an assence again whatever game. I think it was Rio
where he got silver right, London, London, do you remember it?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Vivid point by point one point one of a second.
So yet with one one hundredth of a second up
against that Alah, that frenchman who actually, I mean this
is not.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
He looks like he looked like Magnuson. Now remember how
gigantic that man was.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
He looked like he could eat him.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, you could look like you could eat him.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
It leaves Rent free in my brain.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So I think they were more leaning into these are
athletes that are returning to personal bests or shaving like
seconds off their times because of what they're putting into
their body.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
But for me, like, don't be wrong, I think the
whole concept is flawed and a bit problematic. And you're right,
it didn't make a splash, it made a ripple. But
what I will say is it has put an enormous
amount of pressure on the IOC to have a look
at how they remunerate athletes.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Oh agree, and they should, and we've we've spoken about
that at length on this podcast, that that needs to
be looked at. But I would also say that, you know,
some of the rhetoric in the lead up to this
from our Olympians and from current current swimmers as well.
I mean Cam McAvoy, we call him the professor for
a reason. He's actually biohacked how you get faster and
in a clean way, you know, like he is the
world record holder for the fish.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Less way less.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like technically there was a world record
that was broken at these Enhanced Games. Obviously it doesn't count.
He's in a super suit. He's just to the Gils macaboy.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Supersuit's also a point well, any time that you're at
an Olympics and you're like, how has that record stood
since the early two thousands. Ah, yes it was a
super suit record.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
But this is what I'm saying in terms of like
what we can actually get behind and what we can
get excited behind. It's no feats that happened at the
Enhanced Games. Most recently the Australian swimming trials ahead of
the Pan PACs and also for Glasgow. Sam Short won
the eight hundred meters in the third fastest time of
all time. The two are only other faster times than
(14:04):
him in history, both made in supersuits. So we are
at the precipice of another golden era in the pool,
which seems crazy because we just had the retirement of
Bronte Campbell. You know, we don't even Thorpe's not been
in the pool for decades.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
But Sam Short had food poisoning, right.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
I think so, I think that's him.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
In the lead up to some of the trials and
we were like, you, poor bugger, you've got yeah wow, okay, yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's like you're that good and you're sick right now.
But he's won everything, including the eight hundred meters in
the third fastest time.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Of How do you feel about how normalized peptides have become,
not necessarily in sport, but in society.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Oh, I mean, I think it's just like the the
whole idea of self care, right, like we've gone, we've gone,
next letter.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I don't think. I don't think society conjecting.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yourself is something where you can't legally get a mid Australia.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Well, it's like it's not what it is, but it's
that whole obsession with like self optimization and you know,
doing things to make you know you the essentially a
bionic person because I don't know, are we up against
the AI robots yet? I robot isn't technically a thing yet.
Guys like, that's not actual real life yet. Elon's trying
to make it that way, but it's.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Not there Smith, is that what you're just referenced yet?
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Great?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah with Will Smith?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
No one talks about that enough. Everyone's like, oh the terminator.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Overall, I was like, I robot gave us the blueprint,
gave us the blueprint, and yes, I say, this is
someone who's already said the words big farmer.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So I'm sounding crazy, right, how.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I just I And something that Arnie Tipmas spoke about
in relation to the Enhanced Game is the reason why
we love sport is it can be a vehicle for
so much good and you know, reflects society and working
hard to achieve something and dedication and all the wonderful
(15:53):
qualities that go into being that. And the Enhanced Games
basically goes. But you can cheat, you can take something
that makes it easier, and.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
You still don't get the results. You still don't get
the results.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
If you're not. I think that if it's hard because
they don't have a control, there are too many variables.
You don't have the same body and the same athlete
that are swimming identical times, and one of them then
maxes with enhancing and the other one doesn't like it's
the experiment is flawed in itself in that it's attracting
(16:28):
athletes at the tail end of their career that want
to make money. But I think they would argue in
terms of it's been listed forever billion dollars, the enhanced Games,
and the concept itself is going to be I think
it's going to be successful. But I think whether or
not you find it morally challenging is whether or not
you like sport for the spectacle and you don't really care,
(16:49):
or you like sport for the idea that good things
come when you work hard, and it is harder to
work when you're not enhanced.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Well, not that I love will make a habit of
quoting Clivicular on this podcast The Looks Master. However, the
ROI Return on Investment, I learned that through his interview
the ROI on the Advanced Game The Advanced the Enhanced Games.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I think for someone like Desuza.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know Ozzie Desuza, who was in part one of
the biggest creators of this. I think eventually you're right,
it will be financially successful. It will financially be viable.
I just hope, and I actually don't think from what
we saw from our evidence right now, which is the
only the inaugural running of the Enhanced Games, I just
don't see people buying in in the same way because
(17:36):
the athletes themselves won't buy in. They'll know, especially if
you've got athletes who were at one stage clean, You're
asking them to have a different narrative from one that
they've lived, and that's crazy. They can pretend they can
talk it all up that they want, but at its heart,
you won't have that. And the only thing between us
and the I Robot robots is authenticity, and people.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Will find that out.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I think athletes will compete and buy in if they
watch that athletes were in Vegas are allowed to re
enter their usual fields and their usual competition because the
money George is too attractive, even if the brand itself
as a clean athlete is not.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I don't think the IC can do that though. I
don't think they'll let them. I don't think that. I
think it was separate.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
That's the question. That's the question. Because the other thing
is if you have never tested positive to drugs and
you have been tested like you know, I think Fred
Gurley was tested like eleven times through the process. He
was a clean athlete competing. It's the NRL of it
all going. If you go be part of rugby three sixty,
you can't come back here. Wait what like it's a
(18:42):
convenient rule? But how what what do you mean just
because I've taken money? I don't know. I you know
how I feel about the Olympics, and you know that
I feel it must be pretected all costs.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I feel like the good sport basport of it all.
We've got a further glimpse.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I think Ninja Warrior being included in the Olympics is
more of a crime than the Enhanced Games.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
WHOA, that's that's crazy from you, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Leave the Olympics alone. Leave it alone. At least the
Enhanced Games are going. Look, we see what you're doing.
We're gonna go do something over here.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Okay, okay, fun fact? Do we have a fun fact
other than.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Leave the Olympics alone, leave it alone. Okay, what's our
fun fact?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
You have one?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
No fun fact is Caitlan Clark ranks as number two
in overall US basketball jersey sales period. Really, so it goes,
Steph Curry, Caitlyn Clark, Lebron James.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
No way above Lebron? What above Lebron? Oh my god,
oh my god, believable. Louis needs to be saying, can
I play with Caitlyn Clark?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Outsold Lebron, Luka, Doncic and even Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Jeez, love it. We love that. Love it, love that
love fun fact, buy into that, Buy into that. Everyone.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
We've actually got to go.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
We gotta go, We gotta go until next week.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Biggest spot
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