Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Today's episode was made possible by our friends over at YWCA Australia.
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Good morning and welcome to The Daily Oz. It's Wednesday the 27th of May. I'm Emma Gillespie.
I'm Billie Fitzsimons.
The enhanced games, described by some as the steroid Olympics, promised to shatter world records and redefine sport.
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Chapter 2: What are the Enhanced Games and how did they come about?
I was surprised when the Enhanced Games were on in the office on Monday. The whole office stopped and was watching the games. And I was like, you would think that they were watching the Olympics. That is how much interest there is in this event. Do you want to first go to what is the Enhanced Games? Because the idea came about a couple of years ago, but now it's actually happening.
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned the Olympics, Billie, because it feels like we've been waiting as long as a four year wait between Olympics for these games to actually come to fruition. But this is a competition that was founded by an Aussie, actually, a Melbourne born entrepreneur whose name is Aaron D'Souza.
And basically his concept and what played out this week was that athletes would be given access to performance enhancing drugs and such as testosterone, human growth hormones, anabolic steroids, under medical supervision to test how far humans could be pushed forward. in terms of success, speed, pace, weight.
And the idea was that if we let athletes dope, they could smash all these world records. Now, the Enhanced Games had a bit of a trimmed down version of that early vision, and it included events across swimming, athletics, and weightlifting. So just those three categories. But the prize money on offer was really the big hook and the selling point of these games.
You know, apart from the fascination with doping, athletes were promised a million dollar bonus for breaking world records. That's US dollars. And, you know, the minimum prize for competing, even if you came last, you'd still go home with about $50,000.
Wow. So this is a completely commercial thing. Massively commercial. Yeah. Because the Olympics, if you win a gold medal, you don't win any money from the Olympic committee. Your country might pay you some money, but that differs from country to country and some countries might get nothing.
This is a completely commercial venture and just how commercial we'll get into later because some of the criticism that's been aimed at the Enhanced Games has been to do with this very fact that actually the business behind it is selling its own supplements, steroids, injections, all sorts of things online and that this has kind of been a marketing vehicle towards that business.
Well, let's talk about that criticism because from the moment the enhanced games were announced, there has been a lot of criticism. Is it because of that concern you just raised that they are actually a company selling dope? What do you call it? Supplements. Performance enhancing drugs.
Is it because they're a company selling that? Well, really the initial wave of concern and the biggest issue comes down to athletes' safety and wellbeing. So we've heard from just about every global sporting body you can think of who have condemned the enhanced games really over this debate of ethics and health. So... As I mentioned, that primary concern really is about physical well-being.
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Chapter 3: What performance-enhancing drugs are allowed in the Enhanced Games?
He spent two years on a doping program under the supervision of the Enhanced Games, and he finished last in both of his races, the 100 metre and 50 metre freestyle events.
My face is grimacing.
I know.
I'm that grimace awkward emoji.
It's so awkward. In the 100 metre free, he clocked 49.44 seconds. Now that's a quick swim. I was going to say, which is not slow. That is not slow by any stretch. 49.44 seconds, but Magnusson's personal best from 2012 is 47.10 seconds. So despite that supervised performance enhancing drug use, he was still two seconds slower than his career best.
But a Greek swimmer, a guy named Christian Golomev, won the 100 metres in 46.60 seconds, just shy of the official world record of 46.40 set by a Chinese swimmer at the Paris Games. And that Greek swimmer also won the 50 metre free event as well. Now, this is where it gets interesting. He swam 50 metres in 20.81 seconds. Wow.
The official world record for the 50 metre free in the men's event was set by Australia's own Cam McAvoy just a couple of months ago for 20.88. So that's a, let me do some quick maths. 0.7 millisecond advantage. 0.07 seconds. 0.07 second advantage. So for all intents and purposes at the enhanced games broke the record.
Right. And he was a performance enhancing athlete.
Yes, he was doping.
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Chapter 4: What criticisms have been raised about the Enhanced Games?
When you said that he wants to try again next year, does that mean that there's going to be another enhanced games next year?
We don't have official word on if there'll be an enhanced games next year, but I think that this one was very much seen as a bit of a guinea pig, bit of a litmus test. There were tens of thousands of viewers on the live stream. Clearly there has been huge global attention. I think the fact that the enhanced games didn't partner with any official broadcaster...
didn't sell tickets to the public to come and watch, tells us that there might be some money that's left on the table. There might be these bigger opportunities to make it a more profitable venture. But we're talking about millions and millions of dollars in prize money and participation money. And that has to come from somewhere.
With the heavy backing of some pretty influential investors, you'd have to think there'll be some hard questions asked about the feasibility of doing this again.
Oh, so interesting. Em, thank you for taking us through that. Thank you, Billie. And we have a quick tidbit. We sure do.
Billie, did you know that Hollywood blockbusters are more likely to have a man named Chris or a talking animal in the lead than a woman over 60?
I did. Did you know that I've been waiting to talk to you about this? I didn't know. Because someone pitched it in our morning editorial meeting this morning and I thought Emma is going to love this.
Well, I do love it and I'm so glad it's on your agenda because there's this new research out of the UK. They analysed the highest grossing films from 2023, 24 and 25 and they found that actors named Chris, including Pratt and Hemsworth, Australia's own, starred in 6% of the highest grossing films. Women over 60 had leading roles in just 5%.
Even talking animals in leading roles outnumbered older women protagonists.
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