The writer is a science commentator
The Enhanced Games, held in Las Vegas at the weekend, were informally billed as the “steroid Olympics”. The no-holds-barred sporting competition drew headlines for allowing track athletes, swimmers and weightlifters to use performance-enhancing drugs (Peds). The edgy experiment was meant to shatter world records and force a rethink of what it means to be the strongest or fastest human on Earth.
In the end, the thing that was most pumped up was the marketing. The uncertainty about what these games represented — for science, for sport, for human achievement — reached its apotheosis in the men’s 100-metre sprint final. The winner, 31-year-old two-time US Olympic medallist Fred Kerley, clocked up a time — without doping — that would have placed him last at the 2024 Olympic final.