Troubles on sporting front
Enhanced Games, changes to long jump rules concern
There are a few things troubling me at the moment in sport.
The first is the “Enhanced Games.” I must admit, I was a little (no, a lot) disgusted when I read that Australian swimmer James Magnussen said, “l’ll juice to the gills to win $1.5m prize in the Enhanced Games.”
What sort of a message is this sending to our young up and coming athletes. If it is OK for a past elite swimmer to be the first person to publicly express interest in competing at an Olympic-styled event with no drug testing, then the gates burst open. It’s heavily criticised by Olympic officials and the medical world as a dangerous event.
Organisers of an Olympicstyle event for drug-taking athletes say they will pay retired Australian swimmer James Magnussen $1.5m if he can break the 50 metres freestyle record. Magnussen is the first athlete in the world to publicly flag interest in competing at the Enhanced Games, founded by Australian entrepreneur Aron D’Souza.
“I have kept myself in reasonable shape in retirement,” Magnussen told a sports podcast.
“They (Enhanced Games) have said they have a billiondollar person backing them. If they put up $1m for the 50 freestyle world record, I will come on board as their first athlete.”
I am thinking that Magnussen has no concerns for his health which is disappointing and that he also has no concern for the message he is sending to athletes that are training hard in the attempt to make Australian teams for major events. He won gold, silver and bronze medals at
Olympic Games in 2012 and 2016 and is a dual 100m freestyle world champion, in 2011 and 2013, retiring from competitive swimming in 2019.
Australian D’Souza announced he has two billionaires among financial backers for the Enhanced Games, to be held in the middle of next year. I wonder whether there will be a liturgy contract that athletes will have to sign to say if their health is impacted that they do not have the right to sue after the fact?
It has been stated that there will be multiple million-dollar prizes at the first Enhanced Games. Needless to say that it has also been put on record that the first enhanced athlete to publicly break Usain Bolt’s 100 metre world record of 9.58 seconds will also get the same prizemoney of US$1m.
Swimming, diving, track and field, weightlifting, gymnastics and combat sports are among disciplines that have been discussed to appear on the schedule. Billionaires Peter Thiel and Christian Angermayer, along with multi-millionaire Balaji Srinivasan, were revealed as private-sector funders of Enhanced Games.
And, not surprisingly it has been touted that more than 900 athletes around the world had expressed in competing at the inaugural Enhanced Games. I think many people will be ‘watching this space’ to see how it progresses.
I must admit as a past Olympic athlete I am appalled at where this is heading.
Another aspect of sport, specifically in track and field is that World Athletics is looking at changing the rules to long jump. A few years ago it was suggested that the rules to long and triple jump would be changed with the format meaning only the leading three jumpers after five rounds earn a sixth jump. The best of that final round would be proclaimed the winner, even if it does not exceed distances set earlier in the competition. It was interesting that when athletes were asked their opinion, about 87 per cent disliked the “Final Three” concept, including some athletes who will be competing in Stockholm where it was trialled. Hence it never made it through.
Now, the new suggested proposal would see the standard takeoff board replaced by a jumping zone where a jump would be measured from where the athlete took off from. This would take away the precision of hitting the board as part of the skill of jumping. World Athletics chiefs have claimed they are trying to make the event more popular.
Under the proposal, which is already being trialled, athletes will have a bigger designated area on the runway to launch their jump, which will then be measured from the exact point of takeoff to where they land in the sand.
World Athletics have come up with the idea to ensure that ‘every single jump counts’ after data showed over a third of all jumps in Budapest last year were fouls. This new concept will initially be tested at low-level meetings during the year and, if it proves to be successful, it could be rolled out for elite competitions from 2026 ahead of the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028. But, how do they test if it is successful?
Jon Ridgeon, chief executive of World Athletics, explained: “We are trying to tackle the events that perhaps are less popular. How can we make them more popular, more exciting, more engaging? If you take the long jump, at the World Championships, a third of all the jumps were nojumps. That doesn’t work. That’s a waste of time. So we are testing a takeoff zone rather than a takeoff board. We will measure from where the athlete takes off to where they land in the pit.”
He said, “You cannot make change in a sport that was basically invented 150 years ago without some controversy.” Yes, I would imagine there will be a lot of controversy and some backlash.
The long jump has been around since the ancient Olympic Games and was one of the events which made up the pentathlon in 708BC.
It is believed the jump was made from a board even then. It has also been part of every modern Olympics from when they started in Athens in 1896. In Little Athletics they have a mat which is used for the little ones when they are learning to jump. Are we really putting our most high performance athletes in this basket too?
He did go on to say that they would spend this year testing it in competition and if it doesn’t pass it would not be introduced.
As a past long jumper I think it will be difficult to accept when you dedicate your training to perfect your run up to hit the takeoff board and replace it with a takeoff zone. What about the triple jump? Are they going to bring back the ability to do a forward somersault – we might get some gymnasts take up our sport? It is absolute nonsense. How about taking the bar away in the high jump and pole vault and seeing how high someone can jump with a laser? Or taking the difference in height of the jumper and how high they jump?
The next thing we will see throws being made from anywhere around the circle and it does not have to land in the sector. The same could be done for the javelin – just measure from wherever you release it.
Maybe we can see runners being timed individually in lanes rather than all having to start from the gun? Maybe a flying start? Stupid? Yes, definitely. Long jump does not have to be made any simpler. Why remove the issue of fouling? It is all part of the skill. Where will the international body stop and trying to change rules?
I love my sport the way it is – rules are there and that is how we coach. There would have to be new world records kept and the list goes on.
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