UK Sport director rebukes athletes for ‘incredibly sad’ decision to join Enhanced Games

UK Sport’s performance director has said the decision of British athletes to sign up for the controversial Enhanced Games is “incredibly sad”, and suggested it could be a permanent barrier to any athletes wishing to compete for Team GB in the future.

Former world champion and Olympic silver medallist Ben Proud was the first Briton to sign up for the much-criticised event, which allows athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs which are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

Earlier this month former Team GB Olympic sprinter Reece Prescod, who won the bronze in the 4x100m relay at the World Championships in 2022, also announced his intention to join the Enhanced Games.

The pair’s decisions provoked fierce backlash from the national governing bodies of their respective sports, Aquatics GB and UK Athletics.

UK Sport’s Director of Performance and People Dr Kate Baker told The Independent and other media outlets that the event, which is set to hold its inaugural competition this May in Las Vegas, “stands in direct opposition” to the body’s principles and the concept of Olympic competition.

Speaking at a British Olympic Association press conference this week, Baker said: “It’s incredibly sad that those athletes have chosen to take that path. I hope it goes without saying that the Enhanced Games stands in direct opposition to everything that we stand for, both as UK Sport, but also as an Olympic and Paralympic movement. It is not aligned to anything that we are supportive of or encouraging.

“But I also recognise that there’s a human being in the middle of this who’s making a really difficult decision. And if you’re at a particular point in your career and you see no future with Olympic programmes, which is where Reece Prescod [whose career was derailed by injury and who retired last year] is slightly different to Ben Proud, I think we can understand why a human being makes that decision.

“It doesn’t mean we support it, and it doesn’t mean we like it or we agree with it, but I can understand it. I think what personally worries me is the fact that someone, it seems, is telling these athletes that it’s safe [to take performance-enhancing drugs]. And that’s just factually incorrect.”

Prescod, who cited a lack of sponsorship as one of the reasons for his retirement, told the BBC that he had not taken any performance-enhancing substances and did not intend to.

Baker conceded that the athletes involved in the event “don’t have to take drugs”, but said that participating would possibly render them ineligible to receive UK Sport funding regardless.

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Asked whether Prescod or Proud could compete for Team GB at the LA Olympics in 2028, if they wanted to return to competition under the oversight of Wada, Baker said: “It’s a matter for each individual sport and their federation in terms of the rules. We have an independent eligibility panel which reviews all of those cases and will determine whether or not they could be subject to World Class Programme support. So there’s a difference there between competing and being part of a World Class Programme.”

The Olympic World Class Programme is UK Sport’s initiative supporting elite athletes towards potential podium success at Olympic and world championship level.

Wada have said the Enhanced Games is a “dangerous and irresponsible project” that “puts athlete safety at serious risk and fundamentally undermines the core values of sport”.

But clean sport is facing the unwanted prospect of more athletes being lured by the financial incentives offered by the Enhanced Games. The winner of each event in May will win $250,000, and there is an additional prize of $1m for anyone who breaks the world record in the 100m track sprint and 50m freestyle.

“It’s tough,” Baker said. “The current economic climate makes it incredibly difficult for everybody, and that includes athletes. But you’ll also remember that athletes at the top of the game who are funded by UK Sport receive a significant grant, and it’s tax-free, and they get millions of pounds worth of holistic support that goes alongside them, which we believe is so much greater than the sum of its parts.

“It may not be for everybody, and there’s a reality that in many respects, performance sports decide whether we are for you or not, and you will be in or you will be out, and it’s a difficult world to survive in. I have some degree of compassion and understanding for why athletes might make that choice, but it’s not a choice which is welcome within the Olympic system and UK Sport funding.”