Olympic Silver Medalist Ben Proud Indicators Up For Enhanced Video games
Olympic silver medalist Ben Proud will compete within the inaugural Enhanced Video games subsequent Might as he retires from conventional competitors to maneuver into an occasion that permits athletes to take performance-enhancing medication.
The announcement comes weeks after the Briton received 50 free silver on the World Championships in Singapore and a bit of over a 12 months since he was second behind Cam McEvoy at Paris 2024.
“My ambition has at all times been to be the quickest man on the planet,” stated Proud. “I’ve spent years striving for that inside conventional sport, however my motivations have shifted. Now, I wish to concentrate on efficiency at its highest degree and problem myself in new methods. The Enhanced Video games provides me that likelihood – to check the bounds of human potential with the instruments and potentialities of our time.”
There can be no return to scrub waters for the Briton, who’s now banned from worldwide competitors after World Aquatics grew to become grew to become the primary worldwide sport federation to ban athletes, coaches and officers from its occasions for participation within the Enhanced Video games.
Proud will be a part of the likes of Kristian Gkolomeev, who shared fifth place with Proud in Tokyo, and James Magnussen, world 100 free champion in 2011 and Olympic silver medallist a 12 months later in London, on the inaugural occasion in Las Vegas subsequent 12 months the place the trio will compete within the 50 free.
In addition to the presence of performance-enhancing medication, swimmers can even compete in polyurethane non-textile compression fits which were banned by World Aquatics (FINA) since 2010.
In an interview with the BBC, the 30-year-old refuted recommendations that the Enhanced Video games undermines clear sport, saying: “No. I believe it opens up the potential avenue to excel in a really totally different means.
“Talking for myself, I believe realistically I’ve achieved every little thing I can, and now the Enhanced [Games] is giving me a brand new alternative. I positively don’t assume that’s undermining a clear sport. I actually respect the game I’ve been a part of, and I might by no means step again in realizing I’ve completed one thing which isn’t within the guidelines.”
It brings to a crashing finish a hovering profession within the pool through which he grew to become the primary man to concurrently maintain the world, European and Commonwealth titles after he received all three in just a few brief weeks in the summertime of 2022. There was additionally that silver medal within the Olympic pool within the French capital final 12 months.
Aquatics GB launched a press release through which it “condemns Ben’s resolution within the strongest phrases,” saying: “Aquatics GB is immensely disenchanted in Ben Proud’s announcement to signal with the Enhanced Video games. Aquatics GB, together with our companions, stand firmly behind the values and ideas of unpolluted sport and condemns Ben’s resolution within the strongest phrases. An additional assertion can be issued in the end.”
