Lord Coe has dismissed plans to host a drug-fuelled alternative Olympics as “bollocks”.
The Enhanced Games is a hugely controversial proposal to allow athletes to use banned substances to boost performance. Backed by a number of venture capitalists, the Australian businessman behind the event, Dr Aron D’Souza, says it could happen as soon as next year, with more than 900 athletes interested in competing without World Anti-Doping Agency rules. He has claimed that a Team GB medal winner from the Tokyo Olympics is among those to have expressed interest.
Coe, the president of World Athletics, was scathing in his assessment of both the motives and impact. When asked about the plans, in the lead-up to this week’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, he said: “Well, it’s bollocks, isn’t it? I can’t really get excited about it. There is only one message — if anyone is moronic enough to take part in that and they are from the traditional end of our sport they will get banned, and they will get banned for a long time.”
Dr D’Souza claims it is a myth that steroids always have irreversible side effects and cause tumours. Its dubious tagline is “sport can be safer without drug-testing” and claims 44 per cent of athletes use performance enhancements. One of its key attractions to athletes is the plan to pay them to attend, with D’Souza also saying all Enhanced Games competitors will receive free blood tests, genomic sequencing and echocardiogram screening.
Coe, who won 1,500m Olympic gold in 1980 and 1984, did not hide his contempt. “I’m sure there are crazy things in other sectors and we occasionally get them,” he said. “I really don’t get sleepless nights over it. It’s not going to be a page-turner is it?”
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David Rudisha, the now retired 800m world-record holder, also criticised the idea. “There have been a lot of changes in our sport in terms of rules, regulations and technology and all are for the betterment of the sport,” he said.
“But the integrity of the sport needs to be protected at all times. This is not a good thing and just brings a lot of confusion to people and sponsors.”
Coe also defended plans to revamp the long jump by removing the take-off board and allowing athletes the freedom to leap from a much larger zone. The idea, which is being trialled at low-level events, has been criticised by former Olympic long jump champions Carl Lewis and Lynn Davies.
“Our sport is 150 years old. There are elements of it that you absolutely want to protect — they are sacrosanct — but there is stuff there that just leaves people a little cold,” Coe said. “It is going to change; it has to. We can’t just sit there. The holy grail of every sport is to remain salient, interesting and exciting to young people.”
The long jump idea is one of a series of innovations being considered. “We’ve done a lot of research off the back of the Budapest World Championships [last year],” Coe said. “We did it in the stadium and with people watching at home and they’re telling us key things. There’s a lot of downtime — 31 per cent of all long jumpers are failing attempts. I’m not saying that the take-off zone is the only remedy and it’s one of a raft of changes.
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“We’re not going to back off innovation here. It is really important. We have a responsibility to future-proof the sport.”
