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For years now, organizers of a controversial sporting event called the Enhanced Games have been promising to push the limits of human athleticism by allowing participants to use whatever performance enhancing drugs they want.
The event, backed by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel and fellow billionaire biohacker Christian Angermayer, was meant to prove a highly contentious point: that regimens of stimulants, growth hormones, and peptides — many of which can be bought directly through the event’s website, naturally — can unlock previously unattainable levels of human performance and beat world records in the process.
Unfortunately for them, the spectacle didn’t go according to plan. The event, which took place over the weekend, saw dozens of athletes go head to head in a number of Olympic disciplines with the hope of proving that synthetically enhancing their bodies would allow them to swim and sprint faster, not to mention lift heavier weights.
But instead, as The Guardian reports, three of the event’s winners weren’t actually taking any banned substances at all — a hilarious development that put a major dent into the organizers’ boisterous marketing.
However, there was one widely-disputed claim of a world record, which won’t be recognized by international sporting bodies. Greek athlete Kristian Gkolomeev beat Australian swimmer Cameron McEvoy’s 50 meter freestyle record by a mere 0.07 seconds, covering the distance in just 20.81 seconds. And even that claim is a bit muddy: while Gkolomeev was using several banned substances, he was also relying on a special swimming suit that was banned in professional sports over a decade ago.
Organizers were seemingly desperate to run a victory lap in their efforts to paint the event as the “Olympics of the future.”
“We have arrived in mainstream culture,” said Enhanced Games CEO Maximilian Martin in a statement. “We are here to stay. We have changed the world tonight.”
“With the power of enhancements we can prove we are the best we can ever think of and you are living proof of that,” he added while addressing an audience of influencers and biotech investors.
Other athletes were far less impressed. McEvoy, who broke the 50 meter freestyle swimming world record in March, shot back following Gkolomeev’s performance.
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