Former Australian swimmer James Magnussen created quite a stir recently when he spoke openly about his first exposure to performance enhancement. He completed a very focused training plan, for eight to ten weeks, in the United States. This immense blow has sparked conversations about the stigma behind these practices in athletics.
Retiring after the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Magnussen has been very vocal and candid about his opinions toward performance enhancements being used in sport. He’s on a crusade to make them illegal and never introduced in a competitive sport, a mission that traces back to his childhood. He now acknowledges that much of the stigma surrounding these substances has been built over the years without open dialogue.
It’s a whole new world. For me, it broke down the stigma,” Magnussen stated in a recent interview. And he stressed that most discussions about performance-enhancing drugs completely mischaracterize the conversation. It misses an honest conversation around their use and impact.
Magnussen is joint founder of the new Enhanced Games set to debut next year in Las Vegas. We’re looking forward to hearing more from him on his specific STP enhancement program. We’re going to have detailed coverage of all the substances he tried, what the dosages were, when he took them, and his reactions to the experience.
I don’t know, but I always had this kind of moralistic perception of performance-enhancing drugs that they should never be used in sport and they’re dangerous. It’s what you learn in the book at school, isn’t it?” he thought. He continued that there has never been real and candid discussion on these issues. He thinks they’ve been demonized in a lot of ways, particularly in terms of how they’re used and what they do.
Throughout his first round of improvements, Magnussen experienced amazing physical transformation. That’s essentially what happened when Tony packed on 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) of muscle in just ten days! He wrote about feeling more healthy than ever, though admitting that his times in the pool were not improving like he had hoped.
“The enhancements I see as like the cherry on top,” he remarked, suggesting that while they can provide an advantage, they are not a cure-all for athletic performance. He expressed the psychological challenges associated with injecting himself as part of the process, calling it “the most confronting thing about the whole process.”
Organizers of the Enhanced Games have set a lucrative bonus of $1.5 million for athletes who break world records during the event. Previously, Magnussen had been known to claim he’d “juice to the gills” for a $1 million payday. He gets ready to enter a new chapter of his career. His new focus is on being in peak shape by the time of those first games.
Magnussen’s move into performance enhancements makes him something of a trailblazer in this brave new world of sport. He hopes that by sharing his experiences, he can contribute to a more nuanced conversation about the role of these substances in athletics.
Enhanced are the first to arrive and will ride around talking to and photographing the details. Then I am able to be forthright about substances, dosages, effects and what I plan to do differently next time.
