The Enhanced Games might actually get off the ground and offer a place where athletes can use steroids and other scientific enhancements while competing. They hope to get the “real” world records. And if you care to say that this is immoral, they have prepared answers for you.
The Olympic Games are a real money maker. But the “amateur” athletes competing don’t make enough to live on and thus have to have other income. They plan to change that. I hate to say it, but they may have a point.
Still, I won’t give it a firm okay unless I hear that steroids are not shortening the lives of the athletes. I’m afraid that definitive studies are only going to come about because of the Enhanced Games. These athletes are going to be guinea pigs in this instance.
There are also known side effects that most would find troubling. Like a higher risk of torn tendons for example. There are side effects that may shorten the lives of users. Like high blood pressure, increased bad cholesterol, lowered good cholesterol and problems with the heart.
And ‘roid rage is real. This side effect could get stars in, say, a track event likely to fight at the slightest provocation. This could be used by other competitors. You know, a computer generated voice that sounds like the second place athlete saying something terribly insulting about the first place athlete causing a disqualifying fight that the third place athlete’s accomplices started.
Ideally, the Enhanced Games would go long into the future. So the successful male athletes may gain valuable rights to have a third or fourth child, which would be banned in the rest of society. However this may be impossible with long time steroid use making them infertile.
The Enhanced Games are claiming to be a home for all athletes. A few years ago Oscar Pistorius won a medal even though he was a double amputee running on “blades”. This blade runner was thought in some circles to have an unfair advantage. Whether true or not, special limb and other replacements will soon be able to have improvements on the normal body parts. These bionics might tempt people to rid themselves of their original body parts just so they can become athletes in the enhanced games.
I expect that eventually the Enhanced games would split from the bionic games. After all, it would seem like cheating if the bionic legs could run at 50 miles per hour. Of course the steroid users would call the bionic people cheaters.
So I suspect there will be 3 leagues. The Olympic Games, The Enhanced Games and the Bionic Games.
