LONDON
\nGreek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev was the only athlete to \u201cbeat\u201d a world record Sunday at the Enhanced Games, winning the men\u2019s 50m freestyle at the divisive event where competitors were free to take performance-enhancing substances.
\nHis time of 20.81sec \u2014 which is not considered official \u2014 came in the final event of the night in Las Vegas, sparing the blushes of organizers who had predicted that multiple world records would be surpassed due to a sophisticated doping regime.
\nGkolomeev, who was also wearing a synthetic \u201csupersuit\u201d long banned at events such as the Olympics, went faster than Australia\u2019s Cameron McEvoy\u2019s mark of 20.88 set in March.
\n\u201cIt was a great race\u2026 I got it,\u201d said Gkolomeev, who pocketed a $1 million bonus for the unofficial record.
\n\u201cMaybe next year I\u2019ll break it again.\u201d
\nThe Enhanced Games have been denounced as dangerous by athletics governing bodies and anti-doping agencies, citing serious health risks for participants.
\nParticipants, lured by prize money including $250,000 for event wins, included Olympic medallist swimmers James Magnussen, Cody Miller and Ben Proud.
\nCo-founder Max Martin had predicted \u201cquite a few\u201d world records would be \u201cbeaten.\u201d The night turned out to be littered with near-misses until Gkolomeev\u2019s dramatic triumph.
\nBritain\u2019s Proud won the men\u2019s 50m butterfly in 22.32sec, just 0.05 off the world mark.
\n\u201cWe all know what we came for. And that\u2019s world records. And so, to be that agonizingly close, it\u2019s frustrating,\u201d said the Paris 2024 silver medallist.<\/p>\n
Clean athletes win
\nMore than a dozen personal bests were set, including several by athletes who came out of retirement. US swimmer Miller rolled back the years to win the 50m men\u2019s breaststroke, telling the crowd he was delighted to shave \u201cseven-tenths off my personal best at 34.\u201d
\nBut while the vast majority of the 42 competing sprinters, swimmers and weightlifters were taking typically banned substances such as testosterone and anabolic steroids, the handful who opted to compete clean also achieved wins.
\nThe men\u2019s 50m backstroke was won by Hunter Armstrong in 24.21sec, the clean swimmer defeating two rivals who had taken performance-enhancing drugs.
\n\u201cUnenhanced\u201d sprinters Fred Kerley, of the United States, and Tristan Evelyn, of Barbados, won the 100m sprints. Kerley ran 9.97sec in the men\u2019s, while Evelyn achieved 11.25 in the women\u2019s.
\n\u201cMan, they got to do better than that. They need to train a little harder. Get on that shit a little bit more,\u201d joked Kerley, a former 100m world champion who is serving a suspension for missing drug tests.
\nWeightlifters Beatriz Piron, Boady Santavy and Wesley Kitts all attempted unprecedented snatch lifts in their categories, but fell short \u2014 despite organizers bending the rules to give the two men a fourth attempt each.
\n\u201cMan, if I had about four more weeks (in training) I\u2019d say I\u2019d have had a good shot at it,\u201d said Kitts.
\nHafthor \u201cThor\u201d Bjornsson, better known as \u201cThe Mountain\u201d in \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d, could not quite break his own deadlift record of 510kg.
\nLong-term fears
\nDonald Trump Jr and billionaire Peter Thiel were among the investors for the event, which took place at a lavish purpose-built arena in a Las Vegas casino parking lot.
\nHealth experts warned that several of the substances being taken could risk \u201clife-shortening and fatal consequences,\u201d including heart, liver and kidney issues, as so little is known about the long-term effects of doping.
\nEnhanced Games officials said all medications were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
\nParent company Enhanced sells many of the substances being taken by its athletes to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev was the only athlete to \u201cbeat\u201d a world record Sunday at the Enhanced Games, winning the men\u2019s 50m freestyle at the divisive event where competitors were free to take performance-enhancing substances. His time of 20.81sec \u2014 which is not considered official \u2014 came in the final event of the night …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98293,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98281\/revisions\/98293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}