Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian. Today, why elite athletes are openly doping for the year's biggest sporting spectacle.
I was always talented in the water, right? I always had a natural affinity to water. And it's a place of peace, right? When you put your head under the water, there's no one's talking to you. It's just you and your thoughts or you just pushing yourself. So there's that part I always thought. But my dream was always like when you're a little kid, it's a win the Olympic gold medal.
Chapter 2: Why are elite athletes openly doping in the Enhanced Games?
As you get older, you start understanding how rare that is. So it kind of shifted towards, you know, just making the Olympic Games.
Meet Max McCusker. He's an elite swimmer with the shoulders to prove it. Max trained with military discipline in his childhood. Six to eight sessions a week, entering every competition going. And it paid off.
All right, they're off now for the last final of day two here at the national championships. Look at that breakout from McCusker.
He represented Ireland as a finalist in the European and World Championships.
Three strokes to go. McCusker wins at 23-44. That's pretty slick.
I missed the Tokyo 2021 Games by a couple of hundredths of a second, maybe.
But Max did make it to the Olympics. Paris 2024. You'd have thought this was just the beginning of a glorious career. An Olympian, representing his country and being skilled at a level most of us can barely physically imagine.
Pretty much straight after Paris Olympics, I retired due to like mainly financial reasons, but just had no support or funding from the governing body. So just decided that, you know what, I've made my childhood career dream and I had to go work in the corporate world for a bit.
At 24, Max thought his swimming career was done. A year later, he got a call.
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Chapter 3: What motivated Max McCusker to compete in the Enhanced Games?
It's because the Guardian's not big in America.
Right, okay.
I pointed out that actually we are one of the sort of bigger news media websites in America and the world without sort of picking up the trumpet and blowing it too loudly. And at the end of last week, they said, okay, you can actually go.
So the Enhanced Games, they're absolutely embracing that sports should be aligned with drug use and that it's fair game for everyone to be taking them.
Their starting point, I guess, is that they believe that lots of elite athletes take banned drugs already. They're just not caught. So the Enhanced essentially say, look... We're honest here. We're being transparent. We're not hiding in the shadows. This is what the athletes are doing. Whereas more athletes than you think at Olympics and elsewhere are taking these drugs.
They're just doing so secretly and illegally. When I speak to the World Anti-Doping Agency, they would absolutely dismiss this. They would say, of course, there are cheats out there that don't get caught. but it's not the majority. It's more than we'd like, obviously, but it's still better than a free-for, which is what enhanced games are talking about.
So Sean, curiously, the enhanced games say that it's not compulsory for athletes to take drugs to compete and that they're also not allowed to use illegal drugs and that it's prescription only. So in terms of the drugs we're talking about, what are the actual risks?
I asked the World Anti-Doping Agency this, and their view is all drugs, when taken in effective doses, carry risks. They pointed out steroids, for example, can increase the risk of heart attacks, stroke and liver damage. A human growth hormone can trigger diabetes, heart problems and a normal growth in organs and bones.
Oh my God.
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Chapter 4: What are the risks associated with performance-enhancing drugs?
And that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Nosheen Iqbal. It was produced by Mae Robson, Tom Glasser and Ivor Manley. Sound design was by Ross Burns. The executive producer was Elizabeth Kassin. We'll be back this afternoon with the latest.
This is The Guardian.
The Guardian.