LAS VEGAS — A former Cal swimmer won the first swimming event at the Enhanced Games without taking any performance-enhancing drugs that the competition allowed.
Hunter Armstrong, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and former member of Cal’s postgraduate training group, finished first in the 50-meter backstroke on Sunday against three other swimmers: Sohib Khaled (Egypt), Shane Ryan (Ireland) and Antoni Ivanov (Bulgaria). He reached the end of the pool with a time of 24.21, which was a half-second shy of his personal best 23.71, the former world record, and also shy of the 23.55 current world record.
What differentiated Armstrong from most of the competition during Sunday’s controversial event was that he did not take any of the performance-enhancing drugs banned by all international sporting bodies, something that the Enhanced Games permitted its athletes to do for these games. The 25-year-old was not the only “non-enhanced” athlete in this race as Khaled also did not take any PEDs.
Armstrong still hopes to compete in the Los Angeles Olympics and future international competitions. He told ESPN in March that he believes that passing a clean drug test will let him still achieve those goals despite participating in an event that multiple international sports bodies have condemned. Like many of the athletes competing, the financial incentives were simply too good to pass up. His first-place finish has netted him $250,000, and that’s after just one race.
The swimmer’s status as a non-enhanced athlete was referenced in passing during the first question of his Jumbotron interview. But while Armstrong is one of four athletes to compete “naturally,” he still competed in a “supersuit” that World Aquatics banned in 2010.
“This supersuit is crazy,” Armstrong said after the race. “… My underwaters feel so much better. Your hips are supported. This suit is game changing.”
Armstrong will race one more time on Sunday in the 100-meter freestyle.
