All posts tagged: Upping

Were the Enhanced Games a Bust? Organizers Are Upping the Ante to  Million

Were the Enhanced Games a Bust? Organizers Are Upping the Ante to $10 Million

Getting the world’s best athletes to abandon elite competition for the fringe ecosystem of the Enhanced Games is no easy feat. In part, that’s because athletes would potentially have to give up their Olympic dreams in order to participate, as the International Olympic Committee has threatened to bar any athlete who even attends the Enhanced Games, whether or not they use PEDs (not all of them did), from competition. The result was a roster made up largely of retired athletes or competitors who had never quite reached the level required to break world records in the first place. “A good athlete probably couldn’t do what Barry Bonds did, or pitch as fast as Roger Clemens,” says Darren Rovell, the former ESPN journalist turned venture capitalist. “So the question becomes—and I think this is where the concern lies—what is the delta between a great athlete and a good athlete? They didn’t sign up legends, that’s for sure.” While records weren’t necessarily shattered, 22 athletes achieved personal bests at the games. But whether the public cares about …