Look, when it comes to sporting disgraces, you’re right: the pickings are singularly rich right now – and I don’t just mean LIV golf, organised and funded by a murderer. (Don’t get me started – as I have been known to go on for some time.)
On a good day, I can think of nothing more grotesque than the vision of two former footballers in their late 30s/40s like Sonny Bill Williams and Paul Gallen beating the bejesus out of each other, trying to inflict more brain damage on each other, all as the crowd roars its approval. (Who promotes this crap? Who watches it?)
But, OK, you got me. Today is a bad day.
Because today they announced the whole Enhanced Games thing, where a particular kind of athlete – cheats, drugged to the eyeballs and worse, with flecks of urine in their steroids – will go up against each other in some comp in Las Vegas next year, covering swimming, athletics and weightlifting.
The star of their show will be our own one-time hero, James Magnussen, a good man gone wrong.
James, James, James. I reckon I speak on behalf of most of the nation when I say … WTAF? What are you doing?
Australian James Magnussen features in the new Enhanced Games documentary.Credit: Enhanced Games
You have the honour of being an Australian Olympian, heir to a legacy that boasts names such as Boy Charlton, Murray Rose, Dawn Fraser, Shane Gould, Kieren Perkins and Ariarne Titmus. And THIS is what do with it? You cash that fame in, that credibility … for what, exactly?
When you were a little boy, daring to dream, what would you have thought if you knew your fate was to become infamous for trying to legitimise cheating? And yes, I know it’s not cheating in the sense of surreptitiously seeking an advantage over your opponent. But just because you are so open about it doesn’t make it any less of a perversion of what sport is about.
Equally, I get your disappointment at missing out on that gold medal in London by a hundredth of a second. I get the temptation to earn a quick million bucks if you break the 50m world record.
But, James, what the RUCK, is the POINT?
Matt Targett, James Magnussen,
Christian Sprenger and Hayden Stoeckel pose with their bronze medals in London eight years ago.Credit: Getty
If you wanted to see how fast you can go, outside the usual rules, why not – and I mean this as a serious point – wear flippers?
Would we spectators care to watch such a race? Of course not. And I have just as little interest in watching this corruption of commerce meets chemicals as the cameras roll.
There could be no race that more anathematic to the spirt of sport, and less anthemic. Yes, the Australian anthem, if you remember that? We were so proud of you, as you stood on the blocks in London.
Here you were, our best and brightest, putting your skill and will to the test. Not your pill. For who the hell cares which athlete on the blocks has the best chemist on his or her side? What has that got to do with sport? I suggest as little as it has to do with ethics.
Mate, look again at your own words to the Herald’s Tom Decent:
“We tried a few different things … The base of it was testosterone and then peptides. We used BPC-157, CJC-1295, Ipamorelin and Thymosin.”
BP what? CJC WHAT?
Who the hell cares whether your drugs are better than your opponents’ drugs?
And who is this “we”? You and people with white coats, so lacking in their own ethics – you heard me – they’re prepared to use their medical skills to juice an athlete up and legitimise the illegitimate?
James, did I mention … what are you doing?
You at least acknowledged that it didn’t feel right the first time:
“I never thought I’d be sticking a needle with testosterone into my bum at any point in my life. You know what it is? It’s that stigma you have from having been an athlete and hating the fact there were other athletes out there doing this.”
And you know what it is now, James? It’s that a man such as you, should throw in his lot with organised cheating.
“You kind of get yourself in the headspace of this is a new frontier. It’s separate, it’s pioneering.”
No, mate, it’s cheating. And it’s dangerous. You can say what you like, but how can this whole concept not affect a certain number of teens who see you boasting about how great these drugs are – how you can train all day every day and get ever stronger – without wanting to try it themselves?
I could go on … and bloody well will!
“If I had to sum it all up,” you said, “I think it’s exciting to be the first person to openly do this and be someone who’ll be used as a case study for probably all future athletes at this event. It is really cool.”
Seriously? And if it works the way you want it, people all over the world will be sticking needles filled with drugs into their bottoms? That is pretty cool?
What the hell was it, then, when you were a clean Olympic athlete? Old-fashioned?
“Once people realise that enhanced games is the real deal,” you went on, “it’s happening …. The athletes need to see that first and it’ll break down a lot of stigma and the barriers. I think there will be a flood of athletes coming over in year two.”
Great. So if this works and captures the public’s imagination, you’ll get more and more athletes leaving clean sport to engage in the Druggie Dome?
James, they won’t.
The Druggie Dome will just be a byword for a one-off non-sporting cheatathon, a circus freakshow. It’s the sporting equivalent of OnlyFans – there’s hype, you can make money, but you have to sell your soul, credibility and dignity for it. And the tragedy of it is that your own once fine name will be forever associated with it.
What the hell are you THINKING? A pox on your house. A pox on the Druggie Dome.
