\u201cIt was very close to the world record. I really wanted to do it, but it\u2019s okay,\u201d Gkolomeev said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt at the end I died a little bit, but I didn\u2019t really train for the 100 this year. Definitely, I will take that,\u201d added Gkolomeev, who will also race in the 50m freestyle later on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s Emily Barclays won the women\u2019s 50m freestyle in 24.09s, around half a second slower than the world record.<\/p>\n
\u2018Good shot\u2019<\/p>\n
Co-founder Max Martin has predicted \u201cquite a few\u201d world records will be unofficially \u201cbeaten\u201d. But the first half of the event did not bear that out.<\/p>\n
Weightlifter Beatriz Piron, who reportedly surpassed a world record in training, attempted to get the Games off with a bang with the same feat by lifting 100kg in the women\u2019s snatch \u2013 but narrowly failed.<\/p>\n
On the men\u2019s side, Canada\u2019s Boady Santavy and United States lifter Wesley Kitts attempted record snatch lifts of 183kg and 197kg respectively, but fell short \u2013 despite organisers bending the rules to give each a fourth attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hit a lot of PRs in training. Not 197 yet … Man, if I had about four more weeks [in training] I\u2019d say I\u2019d have had a good shot at it,\u201d Kitts said.<\/p>\n
The day\u2019s first swimming event was won by an athlete who chose not to dope. Hunter Armstrong won the men\u2019s 50m backstroke in 24.21s, defeating two rivals on performance-enhancing drugs.<\/p>\n
US swimmer Miller rolled back the years to win the 50m men\u2019s breaststroke, telling the crowd he was delighted to shave \u201cseven-tenths [of a second] off my personal best at 34\u201d \u2013 though his time of 26.55s did not threaten Adam Peaty\u2019s 25.95s world record.<\/p>\n
Enhanced Games swimmers are also wearing the \u201csupersuits\u201d that led to many official records falling around the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but were subsequently prohibited.<\/p>\n
Former 100m sprint champion Fred Kerley \u2013 one of the few athletes competing without drugs at the event \u2013 set the pace in the men\u2019s heats with 9.93s, followed by \u201cenhanced\u201d athlete Emmanuel Matadi on 9.95s.<\/p>\n
\u2018Consequences\u2019<\/p>\n
The Enhanced Games are taking place at a purpose-built US$50m ($850m) arena in a Las Vegas casino parking lot, a structure to be dismantled hours after the final race.<\/p>\n
In a marriage of sports, biohacking, politics and entertainment, billionaire Peter Thiel and Donald Trump jnr are among the event\u2019s investors, while rock band The Killers will play a closing set.<\/p>\n
Health experts warn that several of the substances could risk \u201clife-shortening and fatal consequences,\u201d including heart, liver and kidney issues, as so little is known about their long-term effects.<\/p>\n
But Enhanced Games officials say all medications are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, and no expense had been spared on hiring top medical experts.<\/p>\n
Chief medical officer Guido Pieles described the risk of the medications as \u201cclearly there\u201d but \u201creally manageable\u201d.<\/p>\n
His team has published the percentage of athletes taking each substance, with Martin vowing that \u201ctransparency is core to our DNA\u201d.<\/p>\n
Yet athletes said that they are not able to disclose the specific combinations each has taken.<\/p>\n
Parent company Enhanced sells many of the substances being taken by its athletes to the public.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt was very close to the world record. I really wanted to do it, but it\u2019s okay,\u201d Gkolomeev…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16669,4498,54175,1757,45288,12513,38403,1888,6489,305,16484,22638,138334,111,139,69,1118,226805,9090,5976,213,10809,20249,377],"class_list":["post-444291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-athletes","tag-beat","tag-drugfuelled","tag-drugs","tag-enhanced","tag-failed","tag-falling","tag-first","tag-games","tag-have","tag-illegal","tag-marks","tag-narrowly","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-performanceenhancing","tag-records","tag-short","tag-sports","tag-sunday","tag-vegas","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}