Pause for prostration, scooping dust on to skull and other acts of veneration and wonder.
A prophet is one who foretells the future. Many people claim to foretell the future — consider the Book of Revelation, or indeed the supposedly sacred writings of any of the world’s religions — but I’m talking of somebody who clearly describes something that will happen and then, oh golly gosh, it happens.
It’s there in black and white. In 1997 I wrote a column entitled ‘‘Testosterone and tonic’’, later collected into a book Just Walking the Dogs. Find a copy on Trade Me (if anyone can bear to part with one) and turn to page 69.
You’ll see that I describe my fondness for freak shows and state that the modern freak show is no longer the circus tent but professional sport — the oiled and muscled rugby players, the stretched basketballers, the cuboid weightlifters, the mountainous shot putters, the miniature gymnasts and so on.
I go on to suggest (and you’ll forgive me for quoting myself but, once again, no-one else is going to do it) ‘‘it is obvious that so long as the rules of any sport favour freaks then that sport will be beset by drugs because drugs can aid freakishness. It is equally obvious that the war against drugs cannot be won. The drug-makers are driven by wealth and glory. The poor old drug-detectors are driven only by a sense of fair play. Wealth and glory will win every time.’’
My proposal then was to let the athletes go to it and take all the drugs they wanted.
‘‘Let the giant pharmaceuticals,’’ I wrote, ‘‘compete to sponsor the pharmaceutical giants.’’
The result would be a freak show for me to gawp at.
It would be like the Olympics of the 1970s where ‘‘the East German chemists cleaned up every strength event going, except for the women’s shot put. This was invariably won by the Russian chemists who had created two magnificently hairy sisters called Press. When the Presses won they wept. A thimbleful of their tears could defoliate a Siberian beech-forest.’’
Three decades ago I wrote those words and lo! this week in Las Vegas there were held the inaugural Enhanced Games, at which competitors were allowed to swig on growth hormones, inject anabolic steroids, inhale stimulants, shrink their testicles, shorten their lives and generally do whatever they liked to their flesh in the name of sporting spectacle.
The organisers of the Enhanced Games predicted a swag of world records, or rather of ‘‘world records’’ because they would not count.
They got just one. A long-limbed Greek, crammed full of chemicals and wearing a go-faster skinsuit that is banned in normal competition, broke the world 50m freestyle record by all of 0.07 seconds.
The organiser of the event, CEO Maximilian Martin, understandably trumpeted the Greek’s ‘‘achievement’’.
‘‘With the power of enhancements we can prove we are the best we can ever think of and you are living proof of that,’’ he crowed.
The people he was addressing were a ‘‘passionate crowd of fitness influencers and biotech investors.’’ In other words, it was all about the money.
Just as I predicted, the giant pharmaceuticals were sponsoring the pharmaceutical giants.
They were hoping that by doing so they would sell junk to you, me and Aunty Betsy, even though neither you, nor I, nor Auntie Betsy will ever get within cooee of breaking a world record.
The whole thing was merely a marketing pitch.
This was evident in the prize money. Every winner took away $US250,000. Deliciously, many of the events, including the men’s and women’s 100m, were won by ‘‘clean’’ athletes, who cheerfully took the money while undermining the cause for which it had been put forward.
‘‘Man,’’ said the winner of the men’s 100m as he walked away with the loot, ‘‘they need to do better than that. They need to work a little bit harder.’’
The conclusion, then, is that athletes will go to extraordinary lengths to win a medal — including in some cases taking illicit drugs — because they want the glory associated with the medal.
But if it is generally known that they’ve cheated to win, then the medal comes with no glory and they won’t work hard to get it.
For this reason the Enhanced Games were a flop, and they will be dead within a year or two, and the bio-investors will have lost their money.
You doubt me? Never bet against a prophet.
• Joe Bennett is a Lyttelton writer.
