WEBVTT - The Steroid Olympics Flopped: Billionaires, PEDs, and a $1M World Record 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.120 Welcome to two percent. I'm your host, Michael Easter. Here's 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.320 an insane idea. What if we took a bunch of athletes, 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.079 rejuiced them to the gills with performance enhancing drugs, and 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.320 then we had them all compete. Now, this might sound 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.079 like something someone comes up with in their dorm room 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.240 while stoned, but it actually just happened at the Enhanced Games, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.200 which were held in Las Vegas in May. So today 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.120 we have Chris Guyemali and Sam Egan. They were on 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.760 the ground before, during, and after the Enhanced Games. They 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.360 were talking to founders, athletes, and scientists. They were there 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:46.400 reporting their podcast Superhuman, and they're here today to talk 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:48.640 to us about the aftermath of the Games and the 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.520 rise of websites selling us TRT peptides and other products 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.960 that promise us better versions of ourselves with no effort, 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.640 just the swipe of a credit card. We'll take a 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:08.240 break and then we're going to bring them on. All right, 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.279 Chris and Sam, thanks for coming on two percent. 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:11.840 Oh, thank you for having us. 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:12.960 Really appreciate it. 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.520 So, you guys are about to release the final two 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.759 episodes of your show on the Enhanced Games. 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.520 It might be out by the time this episode is out. 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:22.800 But for people who have no clue what the hell 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.440 they Enhanced Games are, explain it to us. 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.319 Yeah, so the Enhanced Games were originally billed as the 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.840 sort of steroid Olympics, which you know is kind of 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.880 the kind of idea that like Stone College students tend 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:37.800 to have or like, we're didn't it be sick if 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.320 we like had all these like peds and people could 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:41.080 do whatever they want. 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:43.280 But they actually made it happen. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.160 It was founded by this guy named Aaron Desuza, who 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.800 is an associated Peter Thiel's who is most famous for 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.320 helping bring down the Gawker website from many many years ago. 0:01:55.880 --> 0:02:00.000 And yeah, we've just been embedded in this strange world 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.600 where they convinced a bunch of former Olympians to take 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.800 some peds and try to try to break some world records. 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.080 That's basically what this thing is. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:11.560 It's actually gonna say some people who aren't who aren't 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.880 even Olympians, like they got they I think obviously because 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.400 this was so controversial, they kind of had to widen 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.799 their their search and they got some people who had 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.080 never competed in the Olympics, but you know, not to 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:24.920 get ahead of myself, but actually ended up like beating 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:25.760 former Olympians. 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:30.200 Yeah, so with the word controversy. So when I first 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.360 heard word of this, and I don't know what, it was, 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:36.640 probably a few months ago. You hear steroid Olympics, you 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.800 hear like Saudi money, you hear we're do some people 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:41.960 the gills, And my initial thing was like, this just 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.400 sounds like a giant grift, Like this sounds insane. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:46.200 What is this? 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.280 What did you find in terms of that? So what 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.480 was your mindset entering doing this podcast? 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.480 And like where is it gone? Sence? 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:55.720 Then? 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:57.440 And I'm not wrong? 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.639 Am I wrong that this has kind of insane? 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.880 No? When I went in, I kind of didn't know 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.760 what to expect. It just sounded so circusy and like 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.359 a big old sort of carnival sort of thing that 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.240 I was like, dude, this could end up being a firefest, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.520 this could end up being something stranger altogether. But as 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:20.880 we've been sort of embedded in this thing this whole time, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.880 I kind of realized it's basically just you know, the 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.040 website hymns with a WWE component attached to it as 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:30.160 the marketing apparatus. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.720 Basically, Yeah, and so people who don't know people who 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:40.240 don't know hims, hymns cells basically supplements PEP dydes TRT. 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.840 Yeah, yeah, I mean I would say for me, I 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:45.640 came out a little bit earlier to the project than Chris. 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:47.920 I went to their initial event where they announced that 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.040 this was actually going to happen at Resorts World in Vegas, 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:56.280 like he's sort of in May of twenty five, and 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:58.560 it took me about I mean, I don't know what 0:03:58.560 --> 0:03:59.800 this says about me, but it took me about a 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.480 full day of like attending these events and talking to 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:04.920 people to be like, hey, I think that they're trying 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.040 to sell t stosterum to the wider pub. This is 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.000 an ad like, this is an advertise. It took me 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.280 a full day to realize it. And I would say 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:18.160 throughout the whole process of making this series that that 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.200 suspicion was only was only confirmed. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.480 Yeah, So tell me what the business model is, because 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.920 when I first heard this, I was like, Oh, they 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.240 just they want to see like what people can do 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:31.200 if they're juice to the gills. Kind of interesting to 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.040 your point, Chris, kind of sounds like something you come 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.880 up with in your dorm room stoned. But there's a 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.120 bigger play here because they are paying these athletes in 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.320 same money. So then the questions will where's the money 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.479 coming from and how are they actually going to make money? 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:43.480 So tell us about that. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.839 It's the enhanced games are funded at least at it's 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.680 the start. Now it's a publicly traded company by Christian Engermeier, 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.120 who is this sort of biopharma billionaire who's played in 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.479 the in the psychedelic space for some time. And the 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.000 business model, like we said, the way they kind of 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:06.000 pitch it is that it is more bespoke version of 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.440 telehealth that will give you access to both drugs that 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.960 need to be prescribed, like testosterone, and also just a 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:13.839 wider range of supplements. I think they sell like a 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:15.440 sleep supplement for Chris, I think you said it was 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:19.159 like seventy bucks. Well, on top of that, they're selling testosterone, 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.479 they sell the whole list of peptides. They sell NAD 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:25.599 and Chris actually went through the website and bought it. 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:27.760 I have not done it yet, but as they pitched it, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.000 it was like you're going to have to talk to 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.000 a doctor and it's going to be more specifically suited 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:33.680 to like what we think that you need. But as 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.680 I understand it, that has not been the case. It 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.839 basically is just essentially the same website model as Hymns 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.039 or Row or Keeps or any of these other of 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:43.880 these other companies. 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:46.920 So when you bought stuff, Chris, so the idea going 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:48.360 in as you're going to meet with a doctor, it's 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:50.800 gonna feel like just getting a precision from a doctor. 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:52.600 But that didn't happen. So what was that process? 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:52.800 Like? 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.440 Yeah, it was basically like filling out a Google doc 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.000 survey of like what are you suffering from right now? 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.760 And I was like anxiety, and it's like great prescription 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.000 on the way. I actually ordered some Sammarell and that, 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.240 in true enhanced fashion, hasn't gone to me yet because 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:10.799 of some logistical hold ups. 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:11.679 In their shipping. 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.440 Yeah pipeline, but you know, as soon as it gets 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.440 to me, I'm eager to try it. But basically the 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.200 business model is they're using this, you know, this wacky 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.520 sort of competition to sort of justify a framework that 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.840 then they could like use to sort of normalize ped us. 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.120 And that's kind of like the big overarching mission of 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.200 this thing, Like if we can provide a way where 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.520 we can sort of do it in their words like 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:40.719 safely and like rather conservatively honestly, like in the in 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:42.520 the public eye, then we can sell. 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.479 That to the masses. And that's sort of how they're 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:45.919 building this sole operation. 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:46.719 Yeah. 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:51.599 So Chris, your background as you were at GQ reporting 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.480 on wellness quite a bit. Sam, you're a producer. Also, 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:57.920 you were a D one athlete. You wrestled at Wyoming, 0:06:58.040 --> 0:06:58.479 Is that right? 0:06:58.720 --> 0:06:59.279 That's correct? 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.760 Of polks you go, So, how did how did you 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:04.400 two get pulled into this project? 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:07.200 I think for me, there's just you know, there's not 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.239 a lot of people who come from like an athletic 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.520 background at the level that I guess I come from 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:16.920 that also work in the in the in the journalism space. 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:18.200 So I think that it so I think that it 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.600 was a natural fit. But I was also really curious 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.880 just from my own experience. I was fascinated by the 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:30.560 idea of I guess just like the recovery part of 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.320 PDEs because I just remember being competing at at Wyoming 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:39.480 and I think people understanding theory the training regimen of 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.560 like a divisional athlete or a big level athlete, but 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.200 like to see it actually put in front of your face, 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:45.720 and to actually do it is another thing entirely. And 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.280 so of you're like an hour and a half in 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.000 the morning, it's been from three and a half hours 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:52.760 at night. You're told when to go to class, you're 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.200 told when to go to study hall, you have to 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.680 go to recovery after practice, probably have tutors after that. 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.280 So your entire day is built for you. Five hours 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.560 of exercise, six days a week if you're not traveling. 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.480 And even at like nineteen to twenty three, my body 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.880 was messed up all the time. I still have like 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:11.640 I mean like I still got like I got pinkies 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:16.040 that do crazy stuff, like you know, like I was 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:20.240 beat up, and the question of like does this have 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.160 to be this way? Like are we kind of closing 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:28.640 ourselves off to a realm of drugs in pharmacology that 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:33.840 could like make athletes lives better without compromising their safety 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.400 and health. I was really interested to find that out. 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:39.400 I don't know if I think that the answers were satisfying, 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.800 but I wanted to. I wanted to see what they 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:42.360 were selling. 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.199 You know, yeah, you're going look like I've been put 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.080 through hell on the wrestling team. 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:50.440 It's taken a toll in my body. 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.680 If there's this thing I could do that is not 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:54.720 going to affect my long term health, that seems like 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.600 it would be interesting from an athletic perspective, just to 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.120 make the lives of athletes not quite so totally. 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.880 And I think just because people don't realize how how 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.720 stringent the anti doping uh sort of guidelines are on 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:11.800 substances that you cannot you can and cannot take. So 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:14.520 study that came up like time and time again with 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.199 the athletes. We were interviewing one one of the athletes, 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.480 Megan Romano, who came out of retirement after like ten 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.800 years a swimmer. She was like, I was even I 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.920 was afraid to take ibraprofen because you never know what's 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:26.439 going to be tainted. You never know what's going to 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:28.760 get you banned. Like the list changes constantly. The book 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.520 of like wat of guidelines is like a tone of 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.000 different substances that you can and cannot take. It changes, 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:39.439 it changes constantly, And it was also just creative without athlete, 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.040 without athlete input. So for me, I was just really 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.280 interested in how this could affect the athlete experience. 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.480 Yeah, that makes sense, So you kind of mentioned who 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.839 is behind this, but how did this whole idea start 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.960 to get legs of the enhanced games. 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.880 Yeah, so Aaron Desusa sort of like was kicking around 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:03.080 a bunch of ideas post his Gawker project a couple 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.559 of years ago, and he presented this sort of idea 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.640 to Peter Teel, who's one of his buddies, and was like, hey, 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.720 you know what if we threw a sort of steroid 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.520 Olympics that you know, sort of allowed us to put 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.440 on this big, big show, We'll create a lot of noise, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.160 it'll cause a lot of mischief, and from there we 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.200 can sort of develop and reverse engineer as sort of 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.200 business plan. So I think they kind of went in 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:34.120 with the big, nasty, sort of like you know, a 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.120 dirt kicking idea, and then they sort of like, you know, 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:38.640 we're building the plane on the way down. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.000 To mix every metaphor possible to describe this, but. 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.320 Yeah, so in a way, yes, it does have elements 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.560 of the this is an idea that you'd come up 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.559 with in the dorm room, all stoned. At the same time, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.720 it's coming from two people that have billions of dollars 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:56.800 and they're like, hey, we could actually figure this thing out, 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.240 and then they also have the sort of gear in 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.080 their mind going all right, and then how do we 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.439 turn this into a super profitable business potentially? 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:06.920 Yeah, And so that's that's sort of how I came 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.319 onto it too, because Aaron and Christian Angermeier went on 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.240 Joe Rogan's podcast, like not too long ago. I think 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.600 it was like in was it twenty twenty two or 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:16.719 twenty twenty three? 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.720 I believe it was twenty four, twenty four, twenty four. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:21.880 Yeah, So they went on, and you know, when I 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.480 was at GQ, like, sort of my big story that 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.040 I wrote over there was the story about the guys 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.520 who got their legs artificially lengthened during COVID secretly, And 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:33.959 so for me, I was like, I kind of want 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.560 my next big story to be about weird stuff we 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.000 do our bodies the way we can augment it and 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.840 sort of improve it. I'm using air quotes here, but 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:46.400 improve our bodies. And when I heard them on Rogan, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.360 they were like Carnival Barkers basically, they were kind of like, 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.880 you know, this is going to change everything. This is 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.240 going to like, you know, sure in a new paradigm 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:59.120 for enhancement and the future of humanity. And then when 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.880 I actually wrote them and like you know, kind of 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.520 pitched myself to be the guy to write a big 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.960 magazine story on it, it was kind of like, oh, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.640 this is just like another business. And so there was 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.679 like this like incongruity between what they were actually pitching 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.080 and what that actual project turned out to be. 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.400 Yeah, it was very much an extension of Peter Teal's 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.400 trans sort of transhumanist vision. For those who might not know, 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.400 transhumanism is an idol like an ideology that has existed 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.679 in the tech space for a long time that basically 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:34.319 says that like to avoid the inevitable collapse of humanity, 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.040 like that we must enhance and depending on who you ask, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.960 even like sort of supersede our own bodies, whether that 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.520 is like uploading yourself to the cloud or ver it's 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.800 aging yourself with like I think of Brian Johnson using 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.439 the blood of his son. You know. It's it's part 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.040 of this this transhumanist ideology, this transhumanist vision that that 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.120 that Peter Teal very much, very much subscribes to. 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:03.400 Part of the argument that they're making is that doping 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:08.160 is already happening in the Olympics and sports. So I 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.480 heard one of the numbers that one of the founders 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.280 tossed out. They said, forty four percent of Olympians admitted 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:14.680 to pds in the last year. 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:16.480 Did you report on that? Is that real? 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.240 Yeah? So that is a study. That is it's a 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:24.480 it's a real study. It is an outlier among other 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:26.880 sort of studies that have been done on the rates 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.920 of doping and the Olympics. And the researcher that did 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.199 it consistently has sort of outliers in his data. It's 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.400 it's anywhere from like ten to twenty percent higher than 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.000 than most other studies. Fine, twenty percent of athletes in 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.760 the Olympics doing drugs is still a significants. I wouldn't. 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.079 I wouldn't say that that's nothing, you know, but it is. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.240 It is an outlier in the data for sure. 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.800 So they pulled the most favorable number because they're going 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:53.360 to well, if forty. 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:54.760 No one would ever do that in the wellness space 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:55.160 might come on. 0:13:55.360 --> 0:14:00.440 Yeah, So they're basically saying, all right, if forty four 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:05.280 Olympians are already doping, like that makes an unfair playing 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.120 field at the real Olympics. So what if we just 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.079 you know, pull back the curtain and say, hey, basically, 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.600 more or less anything goes, let's let's see what happens. 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:15.720 So that's kind of their argument. 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.080 Yeah, yeah, and then you know it, it kind of 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:20.760 has a little bit of a point, Like it's like 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.720 you look at the Russian Federation or like the Chinese, 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.280 like you know, so it's like, oh, these big apparatuses 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:31.120 are basically like helping their athletes gain an unfair advantage. 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.040 And then what are they getting from you know, the 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.280 IOC or WATA. It's like basically like a slap on 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.800 the wrist, like they're still competing, they're still able to 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.560 win medals. It's a sometimes it's it feels like a 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:43.200 little silly. 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.560 So I kind of see their point in some of this. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:50.480 Yeah, And there is some research that suggests even if 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.760 you've used certain banned substances in the past, those can 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.640 still impact your performance moving forward. So you'll still have 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.880 you know, you'll gained more muscle than you could have 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.560 without them, while that muscle's going to stick around even 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.400 if you're not on them, you're still getting this sort 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.160 of boost from the past more or less. 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.040 Yeah, and you know, there was this really funny example 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.000 of this Australian swimmer named James Magnuson. He was the 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.560 first dude who signed on with Enhanced a couple of 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.800 years ago, and he actually ended up taking like they 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.040 didn't have a protocol in place, they didn't know what 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.160 they were doing. He was kind of effectively, you know, 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.520 the trial balloon and step free into the air, and 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.400 he ended up doping so much that it made him 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:33.080 significantly slower in the water. 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:34.320 Like he was huge. 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.960 He looked like, I don't know, like he Man, basically 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.800 like the cartoon version of he Man, which you know, 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.560 maybe having giant shoulders isn't the best for your buoyancy 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.920 in the water, but you know, the dude, the dude 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:49.600 was an ocean liner when he should have been a 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:50.560 speedboat basically. 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:52.880 I mean, I'm not convinced that wasn't a problem at 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.360 the Broader Games themselves a few months ago too. You know, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.000 like having more muscle on your body does not necessarily 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.280 equate to like swimming faster in the water. You are 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.800 basically turning yourself into a rock. You're far less buoyant. Uh, 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.480 it makes it, It makes it a lot harder so 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.560 I did find myself wondering why they chose swimming given 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.440 given the reality of you know, the way that the 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:14.080 water works. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.440 But yeah, because a lot of the a lot of 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.560 the drugs they are offering and athletes are using are 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.760 essentially muscle enhancers. Are they using stuff like EPO for 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.400 because most of the sports are power sports, right, So yeah, 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:32.040 the distances. There's sprinting, but there's not they're not doing 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:33.520 like marathons or anything like that. 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:35.680 No, they've been very like, we don't want to do 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:37.600 right now. We don't want to do anything that is 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.680 an endurance sport because it's not tiktokable. Basically, they want 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.680 everything to be able to they they're very candidly candid 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:44.960 about that. They want to be able to throw it 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.000 on a clip, publish it, put it out there, get 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.480 as many views as they can, which you could tell 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.800 this was their model by being at the games for 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.560 kind like we were. We were kind of depressed being 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.640 we were sequestered into this kind of corner of the 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.560 arena and given very very limited access to interview the 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:11.240 athletes during the games themselves. And meanwhile they were letting YouTube. 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.520 I don't even know who they were sort of YouTube influencers, 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:17.120 zoomer TikTok influencers like go poolside, and they were doing 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.919 like Fortnite remote dances and interviewing athletes right as they 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:22.119 came out of the right as they came out of 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.320 the water. So it was, it was, it was. It 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.480 very much felt like they were trying to cater specifically 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:29.280 to new age media. 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.160 Yeah, and you know these like short bursts, sprint sports 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.919 and like lifting. It's like it makes a lot of 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.280 sense for like, you know, the online economy, but for 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.959 a six to eight hour live event, maybe not the 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.720 best or most entertaining way to throw first games, I guess. 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:47.760 So you guys go to Vegas. 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.680 It's at the event is held at Resorts World, which 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.119 is a big newish casino at the end of the strip. 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:58.720 It's very nice. What are the vibes like before the 0:17:58.760 --> 0:17:59.919 event actually happens. 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:06.199 So they had sort of built this bespoke structure in 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:08.840 the middle of a Resorts World, which was it had 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:13.080 a four lane pool, one hundred yard track I think, 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.640 or maybe a little bit longer than that, and then 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.000 like a little stage for powerlifting. There was a big 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.399 DJ booth and this was all taking place in like 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.720 sort of the shadow of Trump Tower with the Sphere 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.200 in the background. The vibes were a little I don't know, 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.800 this is probably a little harsh, but they felt very 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:30.919 cursed to me, Like. 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:33.280 What do you mean by that? 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:34.600 The swirl of the. 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.480 TikTokers, and then like there were the athlete families sort 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.399 of in the stands. They neglected to put a roof 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.560 over the whole thing, which you know, if you're competing 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.320 in weightlifting or track and you're in the middle of 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.800 like the Nevada Desert, that's probably not the best like 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.560 situation to break a world record in. So the sun's 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.760 beating down, there's like old ladies like getting like having 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:02.719 wheelchairs requested, and it feels sort of like it feels 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.639 like a sort of wellness see Coachella in some ways, 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:07.639 but they hadn't figured out all the kinks yet, and 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.400 sort of that's kind of like how it is when 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:10.920 we like parachute it into this thing. 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.919 It was ninety six degrees that day, yeah, because it's 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:16.080 light May. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:17.280 Yeah, and it was I don't know if you remember 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.280 what I said to you, Chris beforehand, but I was like, 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.240 I've spent my entire life going to wrestling tournaments where 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.400 you compete for seven minutes at a time. Nobody here 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:28.560 is going to be accustomed to how much of this 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:33.000 is just waiting, just waiting for your turn, and they're 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.240 kind of rolling through the events really slowly, and a 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:38.479 lot of it is I would say, probably four hours 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.720 of it. We don't quote me on that, but like 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.760 a significant chunk of the time was dedicated to Olympic weightlifting, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.359 because that just takes time people need to rest between reps. 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.280 No shade to Olympic weightlifting. I think it's really cool, 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.160 but it is not the best spectator sport I think 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:58.480 it is. It happens, you know, like a handful of seconds. 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.600 You're competing at a time, ton of build up, and 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:06.119 I think they attempted. They only attempted one world record 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:07.639 the whole time. They didn't even in the way that 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.199 think they didn't even attempt They didn't throw the weight 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:11.560 on the bar and give it a go with with 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:13.679 almost any of their almost any of their athletes. And 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.200 this is the height of the day. So for most 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:17.280 of the most of the weightlifting, the crowd was like 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.360 empty downstairs, drinking free beer that they've been given by 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.520 enhanced because it was for no no public tickets, it 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.679 was invite only. Everybody in attendance was a press family 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:29.760 or an influencer. 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.959 And so the deal for athletes is explain how they 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:36.000 get paid and what the numbers are and how that 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:41.040 compares to doing it the quote unquote non enhanced way. 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:42.760 You're trying to get to the video onmpicks and. 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.880 Yeah, so you know, the sort of like pattern net 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.240 emerged for us was if you're like not an NBA 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.000 player or an NFL player or whatever you're you're you're 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.399 basically not making any money from your chosen sport. And 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:58.720 so for a lot of these let's let's take swimmers 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:03.640 for example, like their options after they're they're retired from 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:05.879 their swimming career are basically, you know, they could they 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.439 could teach kids, they could do seminars, but maybe you're 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.119 not the type of person who wants to like, you know, 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.760 help kids, like you know, kick around in the pool 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:18.479 or whatever. And so, uh, if you're signing on with Enhance, 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.960 you get paid a monthly stipend. We don't have the 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.239 exact numbers on that because they declined to share it. 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.280 You have basic health care, you have the futuristic health 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.800 care with all the you know, enhancements and sort of 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.800 like health monitoring and recovery stuff, and you had free 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:37.040 housing and food, so you basically had a lot of 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.800 your amenities taken care of and you could basically focus 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.800 on training and training only, which you know, it's kind 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:46.440 of like just like a luxurious version of going back 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:48.800 to college and except you don't have to go to class. 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:50.760 Basically, it's kind of how I understood it. 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:53.760 We should add though, that they that they they were 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.679 only given those amenities if you agreed to be well, 0:21:57.720 --> 0:21:59.280 not all of it. They're only given the like food 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.439 and board and access to the pharmaceuticals if they agreed 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.639 to go to the United Air memorates and participate in 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:10.399 this study that they're doing on the drugs themselves. So 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:12.960 you had to essentially agree to be a guinea pig 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.800 to get not the stipend, but the board and the 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:21.399 food and free access to the pharmaceuticals. 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.320 And then one of the big reasons that athletes would 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.040 do this is that if you win an event, the 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:30.000 purse is pretty big, and then if you break a 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.760 world record at the Games, it's even bigger. 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.040 So what are the numbers there the. 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.640 Winners were getting in most of the events, we're getting 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:41.360 two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is if you're 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:43.520 running track, that's like more than you might make in 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.920 your entire career, with the exception of the best of 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:47.399 the best. 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:48.680 Of the best of the best. Yeah, and then low 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:50.560 end was like fifty thousand dollars. So there was a 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:52.879 range of money you were guaranteed to make from just 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:54.120 competing alone basically. 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.800 And then for some of the events, I believe the 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:01.720 one hundred meters sprint for men's and fifty and one 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:04.760 hundred meter free in swimming, if you broke a record, 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.480 you got a million dollars. The person was the world 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:09.840 record breaking purse was less than that for other events, 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:11.440 but for those ones it was up to a million dollars. 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:13.680 Yeah, And I think, just to put a pin in 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.960 that so people have context, if you play in the NFL, 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.400 you're probably guaranteed at least two million bucks a year. 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:24.600 You play a few years, you're like, Okay, I'm probably 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:26.960 gonna be okay for life, so long as I just 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:30.000 manage my money decently. Now, if you're at a decent level, 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:32.160 like you can, you can be in the nine figure range. 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:35.400 So like, you know, some of these like bigger professional sports, 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:38.040 you can do your thing, you'll make enough money that 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:40.800 you're probably set for life. But with more of these 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:45.879 niche Olympic sports, you're really scratching by unless you're like 0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:48.360 the absolute top, like a Michael Phelps, and you can 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:51.320 get these big advertising deals and all these other things, 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:53.879 but like the average athlete isn't hardly making any money. 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:56.119 Yeah, that's that's basically it. 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:58.280 And we talked to a number of the athletes, and 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:00.600 they all had the reasons for doing it, Like, you know, 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:02.480 some of them had just put down a mortgage and 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:04.560 then lost a bunch of their other sponsors, so this 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:07.359 was like a way to you know, like earn a living. 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:07.960 Basically. 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:11.200 One of the more interesting guys, his name is Andre Govarov. 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.600 He had actually fled Ukraine during the war and his 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:16.639 business back there was basically destroyed. 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:17.840 He had no sort of like. 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:20.520 Literally destroyed to be clear, like with missiles. 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.720 Yeah, yeah, and he you know, he was like, in 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:26.480 order to compete at an elite level that I want 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:29.280 to compete at, it costs you know, ten thousand dollars 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:31.840 a month, like between the coaches. I got to pay 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:35.520 the trainers, my recovery, my food, all that stuff. So 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:39.639 he was like, enhanced was just financially, you know, the 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:42.720 most logical move that I can make in order to 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:44.119 like be who I want to be. 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:45.880 We're going to take a quick break. 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:47.960 Then we're going to look at the actual events of 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:51.000 the enhanced games and the records that were set and 0:24:51.119 --> 0:25:00.280 not set. Okay, So at this point we've said, up, 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:04.159 we've got this big event. We're going to let people 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:07.120 juice to the gills. We're going to see what happens. 0:25:07.560 --> 0:25:10.320 Do they get these crazy times and weights lifted we've 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:14.160 never seen before. We've set down that this is sort 0:25:14.160 --> 0:25:17.320 of one big advertisement in order to sell these things 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:19.960 to the public. We've set up the fact that athletes 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.400 are being pulled into this because they can make more 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:24.639 money than they might have made their entire career for this. 0:25:25.560 --> 0:25:30.120 Now the event happens, what happens with the times? Are 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:32.760 are these records being shattered across the board? 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:39.520 No, no, they go. They go most of the entire 0:25:39.640 --> 0:25:43.560 day without a record. They come close once in one 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:47.040 hundred meters men's sprint, they were like one hundreds of 0:25:47.119 --> 0:25:50.639 a second off, but in most of the events. The 0:25:50.680 --> 0:25:51.920 one that comes to mind is kind of being the 0:25:51.960 --> 0:25:54.080 most egregious of the women's hundred meter sprint. I believe 0:25:54.119 --> 0:25:57.679 that I don't believe any of the times that were 0:25:57.720 --> 0:26:00.879 run would have qualified for the Olympics. All fine for 0:26:00.920 --> 0:26:04.800 the Olympics. Yeah, even the winner, I believe. I have 0:26:04.800 --> 0:26:06.119 to don't check that, but I'm pretty sure there was 0:26:06.119 --> 0:26:09.680 the case. They were all elected the the eleven second range, 0:26:09.680 --> 0:26:13.080 which is, you know, certainly faster than you or I, 0:26:13.160 --> 0:26:17.000 but not an Olympic caliber. And not only that, they 0:26:17.000 --> 0:26:21.760 had multiple multiple non enhanced athletes, so for context, you 0:26:21.800 --> 0:26:24.159 could join the enhanced Games and say I don't want 0:26:24.160 --> 0:26:26.280 to do steroids, I just want to compete for the money. 0:26:27.080 --> 0:26:28.719 And they had multiple athletes who were doing that, who 0:26:28.760 --> 0:26:32.480 at least said they were doing that, were won their events. 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:34.800 One of them was Hunter Armstrong, who the guy that 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:37.840 was trying to save his mortgage, basically who signed up 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:43.280 for the Games. He won one hundred meter backstroke, yeah, backstroke, 0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:47.280 as well as the Fred Curley, the hundred meter sprinter, 0:26:47.359 --> 0:26:50.280 and the women's sprinter as well, whose name is escaping me. 0:26:51.280 --> 0:26:54.600 So they have so basically one the times are not 0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:57.800 crazy the whites lifted are not crazy and people are 0:26:57.840 --> 0:27:00.720 winning who are not even enhanced, and this is supposed 0:27:00.720 --> 0:27:02.919 to be. Let's see what happens when we enhance the 0:27:02.920 --> 0:27:04.000 hell out of these athletes. 0:27:04.000 --> 0:27:06.760 And yeah, and I don't know about you, Sam, but 0:27:06.800 --> 0:27:10.280 you could sort of like feel the tense, the tension 0:27:10.480 --> 0:27:12.879 like sort of like building in the in the arena. 0:27:12.920 --> 0:27:14.960 As the night goes on, it's like, Oh, another one 0:27:15.040 --> 0:27:18.040 that's not smashed, another one that didn't even come close, 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:21.840 another lift that was like far, far far off from 0:27:21.920 --> 0:27:24.960 a world record. And it wasn't until the very last race, 0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:28.480 which was a fifty meter free and they actually had maybe, 0:27:28.760 --> 0:27:32.200 you know, pound for pound, the highest caliber of athletes 0:27:32.200 --> 0:27:33.920 competing in that one, so that was kind of like 0:27:33.960 --> 0:27:37.040 their big bet. And it wasn't until that very last 0:27:37.080 --> 0:27:41.520 end of the night that the swimmer, Christian Golamyve like 0:27:41.600 --> 0:27:44.600 touches the wall and then like there's a split second 0:27:44.640 --> 0:27:46.760 that happens in between that where they like verify that 0:27:46.800 --> 0:27:49.040 a world record was broken, and then all the screens 0:27:49.080 --> 0:27:51.360 like flash red. It's like, oh, they had all these 0:27:51.440 --> 0:27:53.200 like you know, I don't know if it was fireworks, 0:27:53.200 --> 0:27:55.199 but just like all this stuff firing off that they 0:27:55.200 --> 0:27:57.840 were sitting on all night, and you could just sort 0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:01.040 of feel like I was looking at the executives like 0:28:01.280 --> 0:28:03.960 it was like a load had lifted off their shoulders, 0:28:04.000 --> 0:28:06.280 like they were so relieved to finally have had a 0:28:06.400 --> 0:28:10.919 GenZ like break one single world record with the Games. 0:28:11.160 --> 0:28:14.400 But he did that in some sort of suit that's 0:28:14.480 --> 0:28:17.600 banned in the normal Olympics, right, m h. 0:28:18.560 --> 0:28:20.560 He did it and what's called the super suit, which 0:28:20.600 --> 0:28:22.680 is just like, really it looks like a wrestling singlet, 0:28:22.800 --> 0:28:24.879 but even kind of tighter, like somebody looking a wrestling 0:28:24.880 --> 0:28:27.080 singlet in a what suit, but it goes to the 0:28:27.080 --> 0:28:29.240 ankle and comes kind of over your body and what 0:28:29.280 --> 0:28:31.520 it like, it kind of compresses you. It makes you 0:28:31.560 --> 0:28:37.080 more more buoyant, which I do think when they first 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:41.160 initially broke a record, and for context they they it's 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:43.200 kind of a proof of concept. A year ago they 0:28:43.200 --> 0:28:45.880 had gold Christian Golomy break the fifty meter world record 0:28:45.880 --> 0:28:49.000 as it stood at that point, which had been set 0:28:49.080 --> 0:28:52.240 by Caesar Clo in the late two thousands in a 0:28:52.280 --> 0:28:57.400 super suit before the supersuit was banned. Okay, A few 0:28:57.400 --> 0:29:02.120 months after that, Cameron McAvoy, an Australian swimmer broke Christian 0:29:02.400 --> 0:29:05.520 the world record that the rest of the world recognized, 0:29:05.560 --> 0:29:08.800 and Christian Golimus world record in a regular sort of speedo, 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:12.440 not in a super suit, so did not have the 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:16.400 like extra gear that Christian Goldmife again raced in and 0:29:16.440 --> 0:29:20.840 broke the broke the record in so that I honestly, 0:29:20.920 --> 0:29:23.800 to me, that puts more of an asterisk on the 0:29:23.840 --> 0:29:28.760 record than the steroids do. Uh. The line that I 0:29:28.800 --> 0:29:30.320 always say to people is like I use the Barry 0:29:30.360 --> 0:29:32.320 Bonds example, which is obviously extreme. You know, like you 0:29:32.320 --> 0:29:35.240 could go on YouTube right now and watch there's hundreds 0:29:35.280 --> 0:29:38.880 of videos on YouTube just analyzing Barry Bond's swing is 0:29:38.920 --> 0:29:42.400 the most beautiful swing ever. Right, Steroids aren't gonna make 0:29:42.400 --> 0:29:46.040 your the technique of your swing better. You know, they're 0:29:46.040 --> 0:29:48.400 gonna make you stronger, make you recover better, but they're 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:51.440 not gonna make you better at swinging a bat. But 0:29:51.600 --> 0:29:54.960 then like it's the super suit is almost like benching 0:29:54.960 --> 0:29:58.040 in like a sleeve the powerletters do versus benching raw 0:29:58.080 --> 0:30:01.160 without a know, like it's your a gear to a 0:30:01.200 --> 0:30:03.200 thing to assist you. At that point, if you want 0:30:03.240 --> 0:30:04.840 to go down the philosophical route, it's like why not 0:30:04.840 --> 0:30:07.160 put a fan behind him and like him to propel 0:30:07.240 --> 0:30:09.800 him forward. Why not give him flippers? Why not? You know, 0:30:10.440 --> 0:30:12.440 what is the what is the logical end of what 0:30:12.480 --> 0:30:14.760 you're what you're doing? I think here was kind of 0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:15.280 my question. 0:30:15.920 --> 0:30:20.440 So the so these events start happening, no records are 0:30:20.440 --> 0:30:24.200 getting broken initially, and then you finally have this moment 0:30:24.280 --> 0:30:27.479 where you know, screen flashes read At that point, what 0:30:27.520 --> 0:30:30.520 are the what's the energy among people who are not 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:33.320 the owners? You said, it's almost like the felt relief. 0:30:33.360 --> 0:30:37.200 But what are people in the press area thinking and saying? 0:30:37.360 --> 0:30:37.920 What? 0:30:37.920 --> 0:30:40.600 What's the reaction from the TikTokers and the YouTubers. Is 0:30:40.600 --> 0:30:42.840 it sort of like this, I don't know if this 0:30:42.920 --> 0:30:45.200 is going well or at that point when then happens, 0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:48.600 is it are people reacting as if it's a success. 0:30:48.960 --> 0:30:54.280 I think the TikTokers didn't really care. Yeah, either way 0:30:54.520 --> 0:30:56.800 that the families were happy, The athletes were ecstatic. I mean, 0:30:56.800 --> 0:30:59.960 these people have been living together for many months, you know, 0:30:59.600 --> 0:31:03.560 and tells them abudabims them like they're clearly they're very 0:31:04.000 --> 0:31:05.840 kind of tight knit. So they were they were ecstatic 0:31:05.880 --> 0:31:08.640 for I mean, they were extatic throughout for whoever won. 0:31:08.840 --> 0:31:11.000 For who, you know, the energy for them was kind 0:31:11.000 --> 0:31:15.760 of always always very high. The press was clearly yeah, 0:31:15.760 --> 0:31:17.959 I think quite suspicious of the premise. What I've been 0:31:18.000 --> 0:31:20.040 kind of saying is like, I don't know if this 0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:21.720 says about me as a journalist, but I was like, 0:31:21.960 --> 0:31:23.560 you know, if they had broken a ton of records, 0:31:23.600 --> 0:31:26.040 that would have been like an incredible story just in 0:31:26.120 --> 0:31:27.920 terms of it being interesting, not good or bad, just 0:31:27.920 --> 0:31:31.000 really interesting. If they had broken no records at all, 0:31:31.440 --> 0:31:35.320 that would have been so interesting. But breaking one in 0:31:35.360 --> 0:31:37.040 the event that we thought they might break it in 0:31:37.840 --> 0:31:39.720 that they'd already broken it in at one point we 0:31:39.720 --> 0:31:42.120 thought they might break it again with this suit on. 0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:45.560 At the very end, I was like, this is I 0:31:45.600 --> 0:31:49.560 don't want to say a letdown, but it wasn't as 0:31:49.600 --> 0:31:51.320 compelling as I think that it could have been. It 0:31:51.360 --> 0:31:53.240 was hard for the story part of my brain to 0:31:53.280 --> 0:31:55.520 not be like, ah, dang. You know, I think a 0:31:55.520 --> 0:31:58.760 lot of the press als similarly. I don't know about you, Chris, Yeah. 0:31:58.640 --> 0:32:00.800 You know, when you ask about what was the mood 0:32:00.840 --> 0:32:03.560 between the influencers, it actually took me a second because 0:32:03.600 --> 0:32:06.280 by then most of them had already left, so the 0:32:06.560 --> 0:32:09.440 stands were a little bit empty by that point, which was, 0:32:10.160 --> 0:32:12.160 you know, probably not in their favor, But. 0:32:13.360 --> 0:32:15.240 Yeah, I do think the. 0:32:16.720 --> 0:32:18.960 For me at least, like I gained a lot of 0:32:19.000 --> 0:32:21.720 sympathy for these athletes over the months, just like the 0:32:21.760 --> 0:32:24.520 stuff that they struggle with, like the work they put in. 0:32:25.360 --> 0:32:29.120 How unique their situation was in terms of like being 0:32:29.240 --> 0:32:31.800 the best at what you do and being asked to 0:32:31.840 --> 0:32:34.080 train together in like the same pool every day, like 0:32:34.080 --> 0:32:36.840 that was really fascinating. Like the dynamic in there was 0:32:37.560 --> 0:32:40.000 a bunch of alphas in the same room. You look 0:32:40.080 --> 0:32:41.800 to your left, it's like the second best guy. You 0:32:41.800 --> 0:32:43.680 look to your right, it's the third best guy, and 0:32:43.720 --> 0:32:45.719 they kind of like pushes you to be better in 0:32:45.760 --> 0:32:49.960 a lot of ways that you know how much that 0:32:50.040 --> 0:32:52.600 had to do with their success versus peds, I don't 0:32:52.600 --> 0:32:54.400 really know, but I thought it was like a really 0:32:54.440 --> 0:32:57.880 like sort of cute like dynamic. 0:32:58.400 --> 0:33:00.320 Yeah, the I mean the athletes of the people throughout 0:33:00.320 --> 0:33:02.760 this process that I have absolutely the most sympathy for 0:33:03.120 --> 0:33:05.000 the ones that I'm I would say I'm the happiest 0:33:05.040 --> 0:33:08.000 for like it is. I would say my criticism of 0:33:08.040 --> 0:33:10.160 the Enhanced Games in no way should be construed as 0:33:10.200 --> 0:33:13.160 being support for the IOC or for the World Antidoping Agency, 0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:16.840 something that I thought was quite poetic in the days 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:21.400 immediately after the Enhanced Games. I don't think they could 0:33:21.400 --> 0:33:23.840 have timed this worse. Chirsty Coventry, who's the president of 0:33:23.880 --> 0:33:30.280 the IOC, was interviewed and she said, in effect, she said, 0:33:30.320 --> 0:33:32.800 I don't believe in paying athletes like prize money. Was 0:33:32.920 --> 0:33:34.280 kind of the arc that she was asked about prying 0:33:34.360 --> 0:33:36.600 prize money to Olympic athletes. She was like, I don't 0:33:36.600 --> 0:33:40.440 believe in that. I think that's a bad thing, which 0:33:40.560 --> 0:33:43.560 was which is just you know, the IOC makes tens 0:33:43.640 --> 0:33:46.520 billions of dollars. They have plenty of money. It's technically 0:33:46.520 --> 0:33:48.600 a nonprofit, you know. I think that they can afford 0:33:48.680 --> 0:33:52.040 to pay life changing money to some of their to 0:33:52.080 --> 0:33:55.160 some of their athletes. On top of that, the I 0:33:55.200 --> 0:33:59.560 think that the methods that we use to decide who's 0:33:59.600 --> 0:34:02.000 doping isn't. Our sort of anti doping policies as they 0:34:02.000 --> 0:34:05.600 exist are draconian. Athletes have to surrender to test it. 0:34:05.640 --> 0:34:08.640 Basically any given moment, any given time, their athlete, their 0:34:08.640 --> 0:34:11.920 whereabouts have to be given to the World Antidoping Agency. 0:34:12.760 --> 0:34:15.479 Literally twenty four to seven. If you miss a test 0:34:15.480 --> 0:34:18.160 if I think three times, then you give a year 0:34:18.239 --> 0:34:20.680 or two year ban. If you're just not where you're 0:34:20.680 --> 0:34:24.440 supposed to be. They have no sort of say on 0:34:24.560 --> 0:34:32.399 what is and isn't banned. It is also draconian, I think, 0:34:32.880 --> 0:34:36.480 kind of also dystopian in a way, almost opposite the 0:34:36.520 --> 0:34:40.600 spectrum of the Enhanced Games, and I have to think 0:34:40.640 --> 0:34:43.120 that there is a better option, some sort of middle ground. 0:34:43.719 --> 0:34:46.200 We'll take a break, then we'll talk about the backlash 0:34:46.280 --> 0:34:57.640 that happened after the disappointments in the Enhanced Games. So 0:34:57.760 --> 0:35:03.080 the event happens, as you said, kind of a letdown 0:35:03.080 --> 0:35:04.400 allth Like you said, you wouldn't want to call it 0:35:04.440 --> 0:35:06.279 a letdown, but we'll just go with that. 0:35:07.280 --> 0:35:09.480 You can call it a letdown. I think that's for Yeah. 0:35:09.520 --> 0:35:10.760 I stand by that it's a letdown. 0:35:11.000 --> 0:35:12.600 Yeah, event was a letdown. 0:35:15.800 --> 0:35:21.120 Stock price crashes like seventy five percent in the ensuing days. 0:35:22.520 --> 0:35:25.880 It could just be my algorithm, But I did not 0:35:25.920 --> 0:35:27.759 say a positive thing. I just saw a ton of 0:35:27.800 --> 0:35:32.560 hate being thrown at this thing. What reactions did you 0:35:32.640 --> 0:35:34.719 see and how do you sort of process that? 0:35:35.560 --> 0:35:39.239 You know, I think our algorithms are probably coded very similarly, 0:35:39.440 --> 0:35:41.960 like it was a you know, maybe ninety nine percent 0:35:42.400 --> 0:35:45.239 people dunking on the whole thing. But at the same time, 0:35:45.280 --> 0:35:47.799 I feel like this whole thing was designed to sort 0:35:47.840 --> 0:35:51.880 of court controversy and to like, you know, I feel 0:35:51.920 --> 0:35:53.359 like for them, they feel like. 0:35:53.360 --> 0:35:54.760 Any attention is good attention. 0:35:55.640 --> 0:35:57.839 And so just the fact that people were talking about 0:35:57.880 --> 0:36:00.399 it and they had a lot of eyeballs and people 0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:02.640 were going to their website, like I think they would 0:36:02.640 --> 0:36:05.400 consider that a win, and you know, they were in 0:36:05.440 --> 0:36:08.319 the aftermath, they were trying to spin this as, hey, look, 0:36:08.400 --> 0:36:12.080 we had a bunch of athletes who happened to be 0:36:12.120 --> 0:36:15.359 thirty five who set prs and that's a you know, 0:36:15.400 --> 0:36:18.399 that's a moral victory for us and for them, and 0:36:19.280 --> 0:36:22.239 you know, maybe that can happen to you too. You 0:36:22.239 --> 0:36:24.319 could be the best version of yourself and feel ten 0:36:24.400 --> 0:36:26.319 years younger. And so that was kind of the spin 0:36:26.360 --> 0:36:28.640 they were putting on the ball in the aftermath of 0:36:28.719 --> 0:36:31.560 the Games, which I thought was, you know, not the 0:36:32.000 --> 0:36:35.319 worst idea. But for me, the thing that was like 0:36:35.520 --> 0:36:38.320 very weird about the Games is if you are targeting 0:36:38.400 --> 0:36:41.680 a demo that is, like people who are like thirty 0:36:41.680 --> 0:36:44.160 five forty middle aged and you're like trying to help 0:36:44.200 --> 0:36:47.359 them feel younger. Inviting a bunch of eighteen year old 0:36:47.400 --> 0:36:49.839 TikTokers who've never felt that we're back pain in their 0:36:49.880 --> 0:36:54.000 life just feels like the most twisted marketing stretch possible. 0:36:54.160 --> 0:36:56.680 So that was the part I couldn't quite reconcile. 0:36:56.760 --> 0:37:00.360 Yeah, so that's the promise, is that you know, you 0:37:00.480 --> 0:37:05.680 two could set a pr at thirty five forty. What 0:37:05.800 --> 0:37:09.640 drugs do they actually sell to people? So there's like 0:37:09.680 --> 0:37:13.920 this range, right, It's there's peptides, there's testosterone. There's what 0:37:14.040 --> 0:37:16.879 all is being sold? And what do they do? 0:37:17.360 --> 0:37:20.480 Well, it's changing constantly because the Trump because the Trump 0:37:20.480 --> 0:37:23.440 administration is constantly deregulating a lot of the stuff that 0:37:23.440 --> 0:37:27.480 they want to sell, like the peptide stuff. Interesting, I 0:37:27.480 --> 0:37:29.600 can tell you right now. For sure, they sell samrellan, 0:37:29.640 --> 0:37:31.239 which is a peptide that is supposed to boost your 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:36.160 natural production of growth hormone. They sell testosterone, they sell 0:37:36.600 --> 0:37:38.759 they sell nady plus. What does that do? 0:37:39.680 --> 0:37:39.919 Yeah? 0:37:39.920 --> 0:37:43.120 Anydy plus is this sort of coenzyme that helps with 0:37:43.520 --> 0:37:46.560 sort of like cellular repair and helps a lot with energy, 0:37:46.800 --> 0:37:49.560 brain fog, that sort of thing. I've I've dabbled in 0:37:49.600 --> 0:37:51.880 it and take it once in a while. Before I 0:37:51.920 --> 0:37:54.400 got into like enhanced world, they sell a bunch of 0:37:54.400 --> 0:37:59.759 like glp ones creams, and then like they have like 0:37:59.800 --> 0:38:03.760 their your standard issue like creatine and like pre workout 0:38:03.800 --> 0:38:07.960 sort of stuff that are grossly overpriced and actually are 0:38:08.000 --> 0:38:11.280 a little too sweet for my liking after tasting them. 0:38:11.719 --> 0:38:13.960 It would appear that they've added Cialis to Dalla phil 0:38:14.080 --> 0:38:16.360 since I last looked up maybe a week or two ago, 0:38:17.160 --> 0:38:20.239 which I believe some people are saying is like you 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:22.280 can use as like a like a like a mental 0:38:22.280 --> 0:38:25.440 clarity booster. Now too, I've heard that on the kind 0:38:25.440 --> 0:38:27.440 of wellness circuits. So they have they have cialis, they 0:38:27.440 --> 0:38:33.880 have generic salis, they have they have trzepetide, they have 0:38:34.719 --> 0:38:39.359 g hkcu, the copper peptide creating. I mean, they kind 0:38:39.360 --> 0:38:40.960 of got they kind of got everything in this kind 0:38:40.960 --> 0:38:43.080 of this whole gambit of of drugs. 0:38:43.200 --> 0:38:46.480 And then how are they tracking the health effects of 0:38:46.520 --> 0:38:49.160 these because part of it is they're doing these sort 0:38:49.200 --> 0:38:52.480 of study on athlete help health to see do these 0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:54.839 things help or harm in the long run? What does 0:38:54.840 --> 0:38:57.160 that actually look like? And have they have they published 0:38:57.160 --> 0:38:58.080 any results yet? 0:38:58.480 --> 0:39:02.360 No results they've they've throughout the whole process of reporting this. 0:39:02.480 --> 0:39:06.319 They were very at first. They kind of promised us, 0:39:06.840 --> 0:39:09.600 especially Chris, that they would have access to whatever information 0:39:09.640 --> 0:39:12.760 we wanted about what they were taking. And then as 0:39:12.960 --> 0:39:14.359 when it kind of push came to shove and we 0:39:14.360 --> 0:39:15.840 were like, hey, we're gonna go to Abu Dhabi and 0:39:15.880 --> 0:39:17.320 like we want to we want to be in the 0:39:17.400 --> 0:39:20.920 room when you give them the needle. They're like, no, actually, 0:39:21.000 --> 0:39:23.000 we can't tell you because of privacy laws in the VIA, 0:39:25.080 --> 0:39:27.360 and so we don't know exactly what any given athlete 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:32.759 was taking. They have since published some data on what 0:39:33.360 --> 0:39:36.080 percentage of different substances, like different athletes took. It was 0:39:36.120 --> 0:39:38.279 like something like seventy percent use of soostro and like 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:42.719 forty percent use EPO. Just kind of generic like this 0:39:42.800 --> 0:39:46.160 percentage of our athletes use these drugs. But they have 0:39:46.280 --> 0:39:52.239 not made the exact results public yet. And we talked 0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:57.000 to a bunch of doctors about we're just to basically 0:39:57.040 --> 0:39:59.160 gut check what this study was. And there's there's a 0:39:59.160 --> 0:40:01.120 few there's a few big problems. One is that like 0:40:01.160 --> 0:40:03.120 you really don't have any control. You have three athletes 0:40:03.120 --> 0:40:05.440 who are not taking drugs and you're not controlling anything 0:40:05.440 --> 0:40:07.839 else in their life, So that already kind of compromises 0:40:07.840 --> 0:40:12.919 the study. And then two like there is no they're 0:40:12.960 --> 0:40:15.520 not drug They were very candid that they were not 0:40:15.600 --> 0:40:19.759 drug testing athletes and lead up to the games they 0:40:19.760 --> 0:40:21.880 were only going to test their sort of org and 0:40:21.960 --> 0:40:25.440 health and to make sure that they were healthy to compete, 0:40:25.760 --> 0:40:27.560 because some of these substances can in larger heart they 0:40:27.560 --> 0:40:33.960 can cause liver damage, et cetera, et cetera. And kind 0:40:34.000 --> 0:40:36.879 of the hole in that logic that we we kept 0:40:36.920 --> 0:40:41.799 coming across was there's a huge financial incentive here, and 0:40:41.840 --> 0:40:44.080 there's you're not You've already said you're not drug testing 0:40:44.080 --> 0:40:47.319 any of these athletes, So what's stopping anybody here from 0:40:47.320 --> 0:40:50.040 taking more of this drug? Given that they could win 0:40:50.040 --> 0:40:53.560 a million dollars you know from on the side, getting 0:40:53.640 --> 0:40:57.080 some testogs around on you know, there's nothing stopping them. 0:40:57.280 --> 0:41:02.200 So the on top of that, there's questions of you know, independence, 0:41:02.200 --> 0:41:06.360 like kind of independent could the study actually be? The 0:41:06.440 --> 0:41:10.239 data I think is compelling but dubious, Like I think 0:41:10.239 --> 0:41:12.960 there isn't a ton of research out there because we 0:41:13.040 --> 0:41:18.520 have been so I think punitive in our approach to 0:41:18.800 --> 0:41:20.880 drug research. For a long time, not not you know, 0:41:21.040 --> 0:41:23.680 especially with street drugs, but which steroids have been treated 0:41:23.719 --> 0:41:25.480 as a street drug for a long time. It's very hard 0:41:25.480 --> 0:41:28.279 to research the effects of them. We didn't really have 0:41:28.640 --> 0:41:30.160 For many of these drugs, we still don't have a 0:41:30.160 --> 0:41:32.600 really good idea of what they do. Most of it 0:41:32.640 --> 0:41:35.160 is like broscience, and then on top of that broscience 0:41:35.200 --> 0:41:37.360 being just kind of anecdotal, like I like this, do 0:41:37.400 --> 0:41:39.360 you like that, how do you use it? Blah blah blah. 0:41:39.400 --> 0:41:42.040 You know, they had a couple of different categories of drugs. 0:41:42.080 --> 0:41:44.960 It was you know, they had you know, they had 0:41:44.960 --> 0:41:48.080 the tesosterones, they had stimulants that they were able to 0:41:48.120 --> 0:41:52.880 take for the women, they had hormone regulators like you know, 0:41:53.840 --> 0:41:56.160 and then what was the last category stem There was 0:41:56.239 --> 0:42:00.400 one more metablock modulators metal block modulators, yes. 0:41:59.840 --> 0:42:03.760 Yes, maldonium drugs that make your sales more energy efficient. 0:42:04.440 --> 0:42:07.480 Often they're used for like diabetes and libertines and stuff. 0:42:07.560 --> 0:42:09.200 Yeah, And what was interesting is, you know, we talked 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:12.680 to this guy, Guido Plis. He's this cardiologist from the 0:42:12.960 --> 0:42:16.120 UK who heads up there sort of like scare quotes 0:42:16.160 --> 0:42:20.200 Independent Medical Commission, and he said that peptides were actually 0:42:20.239 --> 0:42:22.040 like something that the athletes were going to be able 0:42:22.080 --> 0:42:24.719 to take. In the lead up to it, like we 0:42:25.000 --> 0:42:27.200 talked to a couple of them who were excited about 0:42:27.239 --> 0:42:30.560 potentially taking you know, like BPC one five seven or 0:42:30.600 --> 0:42:33.359 you know, the Wolverine stack for healing and all of that, 0:42:34.080 --> 0:42:37.080 and he was like, you know, that stuff is a 0:42:37.080 --> 0:42:39.600 little too unregulated even for us, so we don't kind 0:42:39.600 --> 0:42:41.080 of want to we don't want to dive into that, 0:42:41.239 --> 0:42:45.120 which to me felt weird because it's like, oh, you 0:42:45.160 --> 0:42:47.400 guys are leaving a lot of money on the table 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:51.200 by doing this, But at the same time, it's like 0:42:51.640 --> 0:42:57.400 you're sort of I don't know, ability to regulate or 0:42:57.440 --> 0:43:00.759 not regulate, but to sort of like determine what the 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:02.040 athletes can and can take. 0:43:02.080 --> 0:43:04.640 It's just as squishy as say, wata. 0:43:04.520 --> 0:43:08.200 You know, Like it was they kind of didn't have 0:43:08.280 --> 0:43:10.440 their own grounding. 0:43:13.560 --> 0:43:15.279 What I was gonna say earlier was on top of 0:43:16.560 --> 0:43:19.200 how hard these drugs have been able to research, the 0:43:19.280 --> 0:43:22.759 other argument that they make, which has some merit I 0:43:22.760 --> 0:43:25.080 think to be fair, is that like most of what 0:43:25.120 --> 0:43:30.640 we understand of the symptoms of steroid abuse comes from 0:43:31.080 --> 0:43:34.120 people who are abusing extreme amounts of them in an 0:43:34.200 --> 0:43:36.759 unregulated manner off label for long periods of time. I 0:43:36.920 --> 0:43:41.239 bodybuilders basically. And their argument is, although we can't know 0:43:41.320 --> 0:43:43.040 because they don't give us access to what they're doing, 0:43:43.480 --> 0:43:45.440 is that they're giving these athletes very small doses of 0:43:45.440 --> 0:43:48.640 these drugs relatively speaking, for much shorter periods of time. 0:43:48.680 --> 0:43:50.279 I think in total they dobe for about eight weeks, 0:43:50.280 --> 0:43:51.160 maybe slightly longer. 0:43:51.360 --> 0:43:53.240 Okay, Yeah, And what's funny. 0:43:53.480 --> 0:43:56.560 What's interesting about that too, is like, you know the powerlifters, 0:43:56.560 --> 0:43:58.080 it's like, oh, they were the ones who were the 0:43:58.080 --> 0:44:01.080 furthest away from breaking world records in some ways, was 0:44:01.120 --> 0:44:04.720 there more conservative dosing that enhancement was providing them different 0:44:04.760 --> 0:44:06.800 from what was available in other. 0:44:06.600 --> 0:44:11.480 Contexts, which I think was unsurprising, and just because weightlifting 0:44:11.480 --> 0:44:13.480 has always always been I think the most drugged out 0:44:13.520 --> 0:44:15.520 of the Olympic sports totally. 0:44:15.560 --> 0:44:19.360 Like in powerlifting, you have federations that are clean in theory, 0:44:19.400 --> 0:44:21.400 and then you have ones where it's like, this is 0:44:21.440 --> 0:44:23.920 a non clean federation, like just juice yourself to I mean, 0:44:23.920 --> 0:44:26.600 there's already kind of this experiment happening in the powerlifting world. 0:44:26.719 --> 0:44:28.520 One thing I would point out about the study, though, 0:44:29.239 --> 0:44:32.279 is if if you have people taking a bunch of 0:44:32.320 --> 0:44:36.200 different substances, how the hell do you figure out what 0:44:36.320 --> 0:44:39.640 is helping and what is hurting an athletes health? Like 0:44:39.680 --> 0:44:41.720 there's just way too much fucking noise. 0:44:42.080 --> 0:44:45.560 It's a strange cocktail. And also like, how do you 0:44:46.360 --> 0:44:51.200 extrapolate the effects of t stosterone from Ben and proud 0:44:51.239 --> 0:44:55.239 Olympic silver medalists to sixty year old ethel who wants 0:44:55.239 --> 0:44:58.160 to Like there is an example that they're like, we 0:44:58.200 --> 0:45:00.680 want Olympic athletes to have a to it and the 0:45:00.680 --> 0:45:02.840 sixty year old woman who wants to tend her garden bonger? 0:45:03.360 --> 0:45:07.279 How do you extrapolate the results from an Olympic silver 0:45:07.320 --> 0:45:09.879 medalist to a sixty year old woman who just wants 0:45:09.880 --> 0:45:12.920 to take care of her ponies? You know, Like yeah, and. 0:45:12.880 --> 0:45:14.719 I think we mentioned it earlier too that it's like, 0:45:14.760 --> 0:45:17.480 you know, the the menu of drugs that are presented 0:45:17.480 --> 0:45:20.680 to each athlete is totally different for each one of them. 0:45:20.719 --> 0:45:24.680 Like it's totally bespoke, like catered to sort of your biometrics, 0:45:25.680 --> 0:45:28.000 your test, and it's recommended to you by your doctor. 0:45:28.480 --> 0:45:31.160 You decide what you actually do and don't want to take. 0:45:31.239 --> 0:45:34.160 And so just like the variants there alone between the 0:45:34.239 --> 0:45:37.799 athletes is like it's it's like just like such a 0:45:37.840 --> 0:45:39.560 wide spectrum that how do you control for that? 0:45:40.239 --> 0:45:40.520 Right? 0:45:40.640 --> 0:45:43.000 So you what I thought was interesting, Chris is that 0:45:43.080 --> 0:45:48.520 you had you would take an NAD mm hmm. What 0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:51.600 prompted you to do that and what was that like? 0:45:52.360 --> 0:45:55.040 Yeah, So one of the funny things that happened in 0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:57.880 like Sam and I like getting put together for the 0:45:58.000 --> 0:46:01.040 story is we both do muay Thai and both compete, 0:46:01.640 --> 0:46:04.040 you know, so you know, obviously when we were in Vegas, 0:46:04.040 --> 0:46:05.319 were like, let's sit up a Muytai gym. 0:46:05.400 --> 0:46:06.440 Let's like get some work. 0:46:06.280 --> 0:46:06.719 In, you know. 0:46:07.800 --> 0:46:09.839 But you know, I'm forty one. 0:46:10.120 --> 0:46:11.919 I'm like it's sort of like the tail end of 0:46:12.120 --> 0:46:14.799 like my you know, ability to compete at this point. 0:46:14.880 --> 0:46:17.279 I also have a four year old son, and so 0:46:17.719 --> 0:46:20.440 my sleep is trash, Like you know, I don't get 0:46:20.520 --> 0:46:24.319 very much recovery. And a homegirl of mine was like, oh, 0:46:24.360 --> 0:46:26.480 I'm like she was in her mid forties and she 0:46:26.520 --> 0:46:29.160 was like, I started taking NAD and it really really 0:46:29.239 --> 0:46:31.680 helped me with like my daily brain fog and just 0:46:31.760 --> 0:46:35.200 my general ability to function and as a writer and 0:46:35.239 --> 0:46:38.480 sort of someone who partacs in like combat sports. I 0:46:38.520 --> 0:46:41.280 was like, oh, the sort of mental acuity that comes 0:46:41.320 --> 0:46:43.719 with NAD plus is something that was really appealing to me. 0:46:44.480 --> 0:46:46.719 And I also wanted to understand what it's like to 0:46:47.320 --> 0:46:50.040 jab a needle into your belly so I could sympathize 0:46:50.040 --> 0:46:52.320 with these athletes a little bit more. And that was 0:46:52.440 --> 0:46:55.000 kind of like what kicks started the experiment for me? 0:46:56.360 --> 0:46:59.680 What was it like? Did it improve things? Did it work? 0:47:00.120 --> 0:47:00.359 Yeah? 0:47:00.400 --> 0:47:03.440 You know what we I Sam actually tried it too 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:06.279 when I when I had an extra dosing that was 0:47:06.320 --> 0:47:10.520 sent to me. For me, it's I think it's awesome. 0:47:10.800 --> 0:47:13.200 Like I feel like whenever I do need my brain 0:47:13.239 --> 0:47:15.560 fog lifted or I need a little bit more energy, 0:47:16.680 --> 0:47:19.840 it helps tremendously. I'm also a lot older than Sam, 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:23.880 so this stuff like my you know, he has the 0:47:23.920 --> 0:47:27.319 wrestling background in the lifetime of those injuries compounded onto him. 0:47:27.360 --> 0:47:29.520 But you know I got I got like ten years 0:47:29.560 --> 0:47:33.440 at least, so you know, maybe maybe the age is 0:47:33.800 --> 0:47:34.759 more of a factor for me. 0:47:35.400 --> 0:47:37.920 Yeah, it was. And I would specify, you know our 0:47:38.000 --> 0:47:40.080 preface that you know, I am not forty, I'm thirty 0:47:40.160 --> 0:47:42.759 years old. Maybe in ten year os old, be like yeah, 0:47:42.800 --> 0:47:46.799 give me everything. I don't know. Yeah, But one thing 0:47:46.840 --> 0:47:48.359 I like about working with Crystal on this was which 0:47:48.400 --> 0:47:50.600 was it was a good gut check. Because I am 0:47:51.920 --> 0:47:53.520 my mother's a doctor. I grew up in a house 0:47:54.400 --> 0:47:58.440 with a medical professional, So I am deeply suspicious of 0:47:58.520 --> 0:48:01.200 anything that comes out of the wall Inness industry. Most 0:48:01.200 --> 0:48:04.400 of it's unregulated kind of et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Also, 0:48:07.480 --> 0:48:10.399 I just have this kind of like predisposed belief from 0:48:10.400 --> 0:48:14.759 my experience competing that like, I've seen what people can 0:48:14.800 --> 0:48:18.600 do if they just train really hard and sleep a 0:48:18.640 --> 0:48:21.520 lot and eat really well, and that's kind of all 0:48:21.520 --> 0:48:26.320 that they do and that's their focus. I'm like, maybe 0:48:26.360 --> 0:48:29.680 we as a society should try to sleep a lot 0:48:29.719 --> 0:48:32.000 more and work out. If you want to run faster, 0:48:32.560 --> 0:48:36.520 lift more, work out really consistently for many hours day, 0:48:37.960 --> 0:48:41.600 and sleep well and eat better. Before we start talking 0:48:41.640 --> 0:48:46.160 about injecting exogynist substances and hormones into our body, I 0:48:46.200 --> 0:48:48.879 was like, I feel like we're starting at the wrong 0:48:49.000 --> 0:48:52.279 end here often because there's because there's something to sell. 0:48:52.360 --> 0:48:56.080 So I came into it, I think pretty suspicious. I 0:48:56.080 --> 0:48:59.040 took a pretty small dose of the nity I didn't 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:00.879 really feel much. I thought the feeling of it being 0:49:00.920 --> 0:49:05.319 in my stomach to be so off putting. Uh, it's 0:49:05.400 --> 0:49:07.759 like warm, and there's it feels like there's like a 0:49:07.760 --> 0:49:10.480 little it felt like one of those like little like 0:49:10.560 --> 0:49:12.759 weights that you see the like in like the old 0:49:12.800 --> 0:49:14.959 ladies and the jaggeritized classes, the like little bullet weights 0:49:14.960 --> 0:49:16.680 they hold. I felt like someone like slipped that under 0:49:16.680 --> 0:49:20.760 my skin and it was just sitting there. But again, 0:49:20.880 --> 0:49:24.280 you know, I don't know how I'll feel when I'm forty. 0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:26.200 You know, it's easy for me, like I can still 0:49:26.239 --> 0:49:29.000 go out on the weekends and wake up, and I 0:49:29.040 --> 0:49:31.160 went out. I was out late, real late a couple 0:49:31.160 --> 0:49:33.360 of nights ago, watching the game two of the Knicks 0:49:33.400 --> 0:49:36.759 and partied until like two in the morning, and then 0:49:36.800 --> 0:49:38.160 I woke up. I was like, I got to get 0:49:38.239 --> 0:49:39.839 rid of this hangover. And my solution was to run 0:49:39.880 --> 0:49:43.160 five miles. So yeah, yeah. 0:49:43.000 --> 0:49:43.759 That's about I was. 0:49:43.800 --> 0:49:45.799 I was going to say, you know that it's I 0:49:45.800 --> 0:49:47.840 know sleep is important, but there's a Knicks game that 0:49:47.880 --> 0:49:51.440 starts at eight thirty. 0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:52.440 And I don't have a kid, so it's like and 0:49:52.640 --> 0:49:54.400 it's easier for me to say, like, maybe you should 0:49:54.400 --> 0:49:56.200 work out four hours a day before you start putt 0:49:56.200 --> 0:49:57.000 stuff in your body. 0:49:57.280 --> 0:49:58.240 We're going to take a break. 0:49:58.320 --> 0:49:59.640 Then we're going to get into a little bit of 0:49:59.640 --> 0:50:02.560 a long of aging and why we as a culture 0:50:02.640 --> 0:50:13.400 are so obsessed with slowing down and stopping aging. I wonder, 0:50:13.680 --> 0:50:15.680 and Chris will be interesting to get your perspective on this. 0:50:17.120 --> 0:50:22.359 Part of me wonders, is having brain fog waking up 0:50:22.440 --> 0:50:26.759 kind of tired? Is that just part of aging? And 0:50:26.920 --> 0:50:29.799 is there almost a reward in that? It's like it's 0:50:29.800 --> 0:50:33.360 a fundamental part of the process of being human. So 0:50:33.400 --> 0:50:35.600 if I think about myself from a writing perspective, it's 0:50:35.640 --> 0:50:37.319 like some mornings I wake up, I'm like, ah, the 0:50:37.360 --> 0:50:39.239 sentences aren't coming out, but I put the work in 0:50:39.560 --> 0:50:41.200 and then I get a couple good ones and I'm like, 0:50:41.280 --> 0:50:44.520 that was awesome. And I did that sort of by myself. 0:50:44.560 --> 0:50:48.759 Do we lose something when we buy a product that 0:50:48.960 --> 0:50:52.360 makes these important things about being a human easier? 0:50:53.080 --> 0:50:54.600 That's a good question, you know. 0:50:55.000 --> 0:50:57.920 To my mind, it's sort of indistinguishable from you know, 0:50:58.520 --> 0:51:00.440 having two shots of express in the morning. 0:51:00.600 --> 0:51:01.879 In some ways, it's like if it. 0:51:01.880 --> 0:51:04.560 Helps you do your job a little bit better, I'm 0:51:04.560 --> 0:51:06.359 like Yeah, dude, go for it. 0:51:06.360 --> 0:51:07.000 That's fine. 0:51:07.040 --> 0:51:10.920 Like we're sort of like thrust into this system where 0:51:11.120 --> 0:51:13.759 getting sleep is pretty much impossible, and like, if you 0:51:13.840 --> 0:51:16.640 do are in a situation where you can get a 0:51:16.680 --> 0:51:18.880 lot of sleep, it's kind of like that's like the 0:51:18.920 --> 0:51:22.040 new luxury in some ways. Like if you're Lebron getting 0:51:22.040 --> 0:51:24.360 twelve twelve hours of sleep at night, it's like, of 0:51:24.360 --> 0:51:26.400 course you're going to have an advantage over everyone else, 0:51:26.440 --> 0:51:30.439 but none of us. If we're working our jobs, trying 0:51:30.440 --> 0:51:33.720 to get in our workouts, trying to like do any extracurriculars, 0:51:33.880 --> 0:51:35.920 it's like, yeah, sleep is always the first thing to go, 0:51:36.239 --> 0:51:38.439 and so you know, whatever you can do to sort 0:51:38.440 --> 0:51:40.840 of mitigate that, I'm personally kind of. 0:51:40.840 --> 0:51:41.359 All for it. 0:51:41.640 --> 0:51:44.319 Yeah, Sam, what was your take on that, giving your 0:51:44.320 --> 0:51:46.840 background as an athlete and you had to go through 0:51:46.880 --> 0:51:50.120 all these you know, PD checks and everything, and where 0:51:50.160 --> 0:51:52.680 do you draw the line? Because I think Chris's yeah 0:51:52.960 --> 0:51:55.640 is great. That's like, well, if I took four shots 0:51:55.680 --> 0:51:58.239 of espresso in the morning, that gives me some sort 0:51:58.280 --> 0:52:00.400 of boost, And so like, how do we how do 0:52:00.440 --> 0:52:03.760 we even determine these lines between what's a quote unquote 0:52:03.760 --> 0:52:06.680 banned substance versus Oh, that's good, that's totally fine. 0:52:07.600 --> 0:52:09.279 It's a really hard question to answer. It's just kind 0:52:09.280 --> 0:52:12.200 of thinking out loud, Like I, especially as I have 0:52:12.400 --> 0:52:15.160 the experience of getting older to me and I've would 0:52:15.200 --> 0:52:17.640 preface that I've In ten years, I might be like, 0:52:17.920 --> 0:52:20.399 screw everything that I said when I was thirty. I'm like, Chris, 0:52:20.400 --> 0:52:23.440 give me the shot. But totally totally possible. But right now, 0:52:26.120 --> 0:52:28.840 I would never preasist to anybody because it's not my body. 0:52:28.880 --> 0:52:32.160 And I really do believe that, like that's the autonomy 0:52:32.200 --> 0:52:35.120 is important, but I do think that you lose something 0:52:35.360 --> 0:52:39.399 of your The process of aging, I think is such 0:52:39.400 --> 0:52:42.160 an important part of our of our humanity. I think 0:52:42.840 --> 0:52:48.480 feeling what enhanced is selling is I think what so 0:52:48.560 --> 0:52:52.799 many in the sort of tech biopharmer space are selling, 0:52:52.800 --> 0:52:57.600 which is like, wherever possible, removing the friction of your lives. 0:52:57.600 --> 0:52:59.279 And I think that the friction of our lives is 0:52:59.320 --> 0:53:04.359 where we grow, it's where we develop as people, it's 0:53:04.400 --> 0:53:06.279 where we if you're a father, it's where I think 0:53:06.280 --> 0:53:12.640 that we imbue valuable life lessons upon our children. And 0:53:14.239 --> 0:53:15.799 I don't want to do things that make me feel 0:53:15.800 --> 0:53:21.120 good all the time, personally, like it's I I intellectually 0:53:21.160 --> 0:53:23.799 I enjoy writing. The process of writing I find to 0:53:23.800 --> 0:53:24.680 be really unpleasant. 0:53:24.960 --> 0:53:26.759 It sucks. 0:53:27.480 --> 0:53:28.880 I do it because I don't like it, and it 0:53:28.920 --> 0:53:30.400 makes me anxious, and it makes me feel kind of 0:53:30.400 --> 0:53:32.319 insecure about how smart I am, and it makes me like, 0:53:32.360 --> 0:53:34.080 you know, like all these kinds of things in a 0:53:34.120 --> 0:53:36.480 very similar way that like combat sports did. They're very 0:53:36.760 --> 0:53:38.719 primal and personal, and if you lose, it's not like 0:53:38.719 --> 0:53:40.640 in football or soccer where we have a team to blame. 0:53:40.880 --> 0:53:42.600 It's like you got beat up in this very visceral, 0:53:42.640 --> 0:53:46.839 personal way. That's embarrassing and that's hard. It gives you insecurity, 0:53:46.880 --> 0:53:54.080 and it gives you anxiety, and I worry. I guess 0:53:54.160 --> 0:53:56.279 I worry. NAD is one thing, but I just worry 0:53:56.320 --> 0:53:59.000 about the logic where that logic ends. And I like 0:54:00.320 --> 0:54:02.319 it doesn't end like this with everybody, but it's you 0:54:02.320 --> 0:54:06.080 can see how you get from NAD to let me 0:54:06.120 --> 0:54:09.840 hammer my face to make my bones grow sharper like clinticular, 0:54:10.040 --> 0:54:12.759 you know, like you can see how that kind of 0:54:12.800 --> 0:54:15.719 rabbit hole can happen. And most people are gonna be 0:54:15.719 --> 0:54:17.960 like Chris and be reasonable about it, but there's you know, 0:54:17.960 --> 0:54:23.319 there's always the outliers that are gonna, you know, take 0:54:23.360 --> 0:54:25.440 things to extremes. And I think because the Internet, like 0:54:25.480 --> 0:54:28.440 taking things to extreme is rewarded because of the culture 0:54:28.440 --> 0:54:31.520 of the Internet, you know. So I just kind of 0:54:31.520 --> 0:54:33.800 worry where this goes. And for me, like I've found 0:54:33.920 --> 0:54:36.720 a lot of enjoyment in the aging of my body, 0:54:36.800 --> 0:54:39.080 in the way that I practice combat sports, like the 0:54:39.120 --> 0:54:44.719 way that I when I wrestle. Now, I I'm not 0:54:44.800 --> 0:54:47.080 as quick as I once was. It my knees hurt. 0:54:47.080 --> 0:54:48.600 It's hard for me to take shots the way that 0:54:48.640 --> 0:54:49.640 I used to, Like I don't want to do a 0:54:49.640 --> 0:54:51.560 full penetration step where I hit my knees. I take 0:54:51.600 --> 0:54:54.120 like fat man old man shots and grab people's legs. 0:54:55.040 --> 0:54:57.680 But also like I wrestle college guys in high school 0:54:57.680 --> 0:55:00.560 guys now, and I'm like, I can see five moves 0:55:00.600 --> 0:55:02.480 ahead of you. I know what you're doing. Like I've 0:55:02.960 --> 0:55:06.439 studied the scrolls too, young man, you know, and there's 0:55:06.480 --> 0:55:10.719 fun in that too, And I worry about losing that 0:55:11.320 --> 0:55:13.800 the more the more that this culture kind of propagates, 0:55:13.800 --> 0:55:14.279 I really do. 0:55:14.840 --> 0:55:16.640 It feels like the enhanced games are kind of this 0:55:16.719 --> 0:55:21.360 collision between two forces that you just mentioned the removal 0:55:21.400 --> 0:55:26.640 of friction from life, but also kind of the machine 0:55:26.920 --> 0:55:32.560 of marketing, big money trying to sell us something like 0:55:32.920 --> 0:55:37.319 this is all kind of one big advertisement for the 0:55:37.360 --> 0:55:40.160 removal of friction. It's just this collision of those two 0:55:40.480 --> 0:55:42.320 forces in modern life. 0:55:42.920 --> 0:55:46.240 Yeah, I feel like that's that's the read. It's funny 0:55:46.239 --> 0:55:49.279 because it like greases the skids in some ways to 0:55:49.480 --> 0:55:53.040 like introduce weirder frictions into your life. It's like I'm 0:55:53.040 --> 0:55:54.560 going to take the easy way out, but now I'm 0:55:54.560 --> 0:55:56.200 going to go spend three hours in the gym, you 0:55:56.200 --> 0:55:56.680 know what I mean? 0:55:57.200 --> 0:55:58.680 There you go. That's a good point. 0:55:58.960 --> 0:56:01.520 Yeah, it is a good point. Yeah. I mean I 0:56:01.560 --> 0:56:03.000 think I've been thinking about this a lot lately, just 0:56:03.040 --> 0:56:06.960 as I've gotten into I've been getting into running. And 0:56:07.000 --> 0:56:09.160 I'm not like I'm six one, two sixty. I'm not 0:56:09.680 --> 0:56:11.160 naturally predisposed to being. 0:56:11.080 --> 0:56:12.360 Like it's built. 0:56:12.760 --> 0:56:16.280 No, I'm getting I'm down, I'm under. I'm just barely 0:56:16.320 --> 0:56:18.080 under a twenty preid at five k. I'm working my 0:56:18.120 --> 0:56:23.120 way up at that build. I'll take it. But now 0:56:23.160 --> 0:56:26.799 I get running. Culture stuff peppered at me on my 0:56:26.920 --> 0:56:29.960 like toort form video feeds like TikTok and Instagram, and 0:56:30.040 --> 0:56:32.360 it is like all sports are consumerists, but running seems 0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:37.080 to be an extremely consumeris sort of subathletic culture. It's 0:56:37.120 --> 0:56:38.799 like you can buy your thirty dollars gels, and you 0:56:38.800 --> 0:56:41.680 can buy your like, you know, your fancy sunglasses and 0:56:41.680 --> 0:56:45.000 your five hundred dollars shoes and this and that. And 0:56:45.040 --> 0:56:46.600 I see people out running in Brooklyn all the time 0:56:46.640 --> 0:56:51.600 and they're wearing like all these crazy drive hit gear 0:56:51.760 --> 0:56:55.200 and Oakley's and super expensive shoes and I'm running on 0:56:55.239 --> 0:56:58.040 like a gigantic old Wyoming shirt and like crappy trail 0:56:58.080 --> 0:57:03.720 shoes and I don't feel better than Actually, I definitely 0:57:03.760 --> 0:57:05.359 don't feel better than them, because like I went out 0:57:05.400 --> 0:57:07.200 and bought an actual period like two hundred dollar running 0:57:07.239 --> 0:57:10.120 shoes like recently, and I was like, oh, this is incredible. 0:57:10.440 --> 0:57:12.960 Like there's utility to these. I understand that, but it's 0:57:13.080 --> 0:57:15.000 it's like been such a good case study for me 0:57:15.200 --> 0:57:18.720 and how far consumersm can kind of take these things, 0:57:18.760 --> 0:57:21.880 you know, And it's it's not it's not necessary all 0:57:21.880 --> 0:57:25.400 the time. It is, I think to me, in somebody's 0:57:25.400 --> 0:57:29.880 counter to what athletics is. And yeah, I struggle with it. 0:57:30.160 --> 0:57:33.360 Yeah, well, you know, the two hundred and fifty dollars 0:57:33.360 --> 0:57:36.600 gentle glide racing shoes are kind of the testosterone for 0:57:36.680 --> 0:57:39.360 your feet, the super suit of the feet totally. 0:57:39.480 --> 0:57:41.320 Yeah. Yeah. 0:57:41.400 --> 0:57:45.200 We had Brady Homer, who's a two like twenty five 0:57:45.320 --> 0:57:48.800 marathon or Jesus psycho, and he said yeah, but he 0:57:48.840 --> 0:57:52.160 did say that the super shoes probably give him a 0:57:52.760 --> 0:57:55.880 six percent decrease in his time. So we're talking going 0:57:55.920 --> 0:57:58.200 from like two thirty down to two twenty five or 0:57:58.240 --> 0:57:58.800 something like that. 0:57:58.840 --> 0:58:01.840 Wow, that's and it's just. 0:58:01.800 --> 0:58:03.800 In the shoes. So it's really interesting. So where do 0:58:03.840 --> 0:58:06.400 you think the Enhanced Games go from here? 0:58:07.080 --> 0:58:09.640 Shortly after the Games, you know, they they kind of 0:58:09.640 --> 0:58:14.040 doubled down the stakes. They were like, oh, Usain, if 0:58:14.440 --> 0:58:17.600 someone could beat Hussein Bolt sold record, We're going to 0:58:17.640 --> 0:58:19.240 not do a million dollar prize. It's going to be 0:58:19.240 --> 0:58:22.080 a ten million dollar prize now. So in some ways 0:58:22.080 --> 0:58:26.080 I kind of feel like, you know, this sort of 0:58:26.400 --> 0:58:30.280 first iteration of the Games was designed to attract other 0:58:30.320 --> 0:58:33.240 athletes who are probably a higher caliber, who you know, 0:58:33.320 --> 0:58:36.000 have a little bit more of a reputation to be like, yeah, 0:58:36.000 --> 0:58:37.760 I could win that easy money, I could win two 0:58:37.840 --> 0:58:41.040 hundred and fifty thousand dollars like beating some scrubs. And 0:58:41.120 --> 0:58:43.640 I thought what was really telling about it is afterwards 0:58:43.720 --> 0:58:46.760 Ryan Lockedey, you know, he was kind of like, Oh, 0:58:46.800 --> 0:58:49.200 I kind of wish I competed, Like that sounds like 0:58:49.240 --> 0:58:50.000 something I would do. 0:58:50.200 --> 0:58:51.440 And so it's like, Oh, if you're going. 0:58:51.440 --> 0:58:54.280 To get people who are on that level like sort 0:58:54.320 --> 0:58:59.200 of you know, voicing interest and perhaps even doing it, like, 0:58:59.520 --> 0:59:01.200 I think that's going to be a lot more interesting 0:59:01.240 --> 0:59:02.560 and kind of fun to see. 0:59:02.760 --> 0:59:05.200 Do you think that legitimizes it or it becomes like 0:59:05.240 --> 0:59:07.120 even more spectacular spectacle. 0:59:07.760 --> 0:59:10.360 So for me, like my two big questions about the 0:59:10.360 --> 0:59:13.560 future of this are I guess one thing I would 0:59:13.560 --> 0:59:15.960 preface is that like billionaires funding their like quirky sporting 0:59:16.000 --> 0:59:17.720 events is not new. I think about Trump and the 0:59:17.760 --> 0:59:20.520 New Jersey generals, you know, like or the XFL and 0:59:20.600 --> 0:59:23.000 Vince McMahon, what I would say, like, you know, I 0:59:23.000 --> 0:59:25.040 think part of the one of the big points to 0:59:25.040 --> 0:59:27.520 that point is there one of the big questions to 0:59:27.560 --> 0:59:31.840 that point is how long will Christian Angermeier and company 0:59:32.240 --> 0:59:34.920 continue to want to hemorrhage money engaging in this operation 0:59:35.280 --> 0:59:37.520 because they're going to have to keep paying athletes a 0:59:37.520 --> 0:59:39.960 ton of money to do this, and they need the 0:59:40.000 --> 0:59:41.840 business to work, and it's hard for me to understand 0:59:41.880 --> 0:59:44.000 how enhanced stands out from keeps or hymns or row 0:59:44.080 --> 0:59:48.760 or etcetera, etcetera. But then also I think the big question, 0:59:48.880 --> 0:59:50.800 I think this is maybe the most important thing for 0:59:50.840 --> 0:59:53.160 the future of the Enhanced Games is the case study 0:59:53.160 --> 0:59:57.520 of Hunter Armstrong, the backstroker who competed unenhanced. So he 0:59:58.680 --> 1:00:00.440 throughout the process was like, I I still want to 1:00:00.440 --> 1:00:03.040 compete in the Olympics. I just desperately need money, and 1:00:03.160 --> 1:00:05.600 the Olympics are a scam and they don't pay you, 1:00:05.680 --> 1:00:07.160 and so I am going to do this and I 1:00:07.200 --> 1:00:10.640 want WADA. Please keep testing me. I will be you know, 1:00:10.720 --> 1:00:12.320 I'm just gonna do this competition and then come back. 1:00:13.760 --> 1:00:16.520 It is currently unclear if they're going to let him 1:00:17.280 --> 1:00:20.720 compete in the Olympics and the World Championships and whatever 1:00:22.240 --> 1:00:25.240 moving forward. They did happen to test him directly after 1:00:25.320 --> 1:00:27.360 the he competed at the Enhanced Games. They pulled him 1:00:27.360 --> 1:00:32.120 aside and tested him, which is funny. But the question 1:00:32.120 --> 1:00:33.400 of whether or not he's going to get banned, I 1:00:33.400 --> 1:00:35.640 think is important because if he's not then that opens 1:00:35.680 --> 1:00:40.160 the door. I think two tons of other athletes who 1:00:40.160 --> 1:00:42.240 still want to stay in the Olympics system coming over 1:00:43.160 --> 1:00:44.680 and competing, and that's how you're going to get the 1:00:44.760 --> 1:00:46.600 kind of athletes who could break world records for at 1:00:46.640 --> 1:00:51.240 twenty five six, so you know, and I think that 1:00:51.840 --> 1:00:53.560 if that happens, if he's allowed to compete, then I 1:00:53.600 --> 1:00:55.640 could see the floodgates opening. And then the question just 1:00:55.760 --> 1:00:59.760 is like how long does enhanced want to hemorrhage money 1:00:59.760 --> 1:01:01.520 paying because they cannot be profitable. 1:01:01.560 --> 1:01:04.320 There's no way, right if everyone breaking the records is 1:01:04.360 --> 1:01:06.760 not actually using the substance as you're selling, there's no 1:01:06.880 --> 1:01:09.600 incentive to the consumer to go buy the substances, and 1:01:09.640 --> 1:01:10.880 then where does the money come from? 1:01:10.960 --> 1:01:13.520 Yeah, yeah, and then you're left with like, you know, 1:01:14.000 --> 1:01:18.080 teachers versus the JV team day. 1:01:19.680 --> 1:01:23.640 Yeah, all right, Well the podcast is superhuman. It's awesome, 1:01:24.000 --> 1:01:26.320 really great on the ground reporting. I love what you 1:01:26.320 --> 1:01:28.600 did with the episodes. I especially like episode three. That 1:01:28.720 --> 1:01:30.920 was one that I immediately sent to my producer Robbie. 1:01:30.920 --> 1:01:32.320 I was like, listen to this, this is great. 1:01:32.640 --> 1:01:36.160 Shout out Lendams, our senior producer, incredible sound designer. 1:01:36.400 --> 1:01:39.000 Yeah, awesome well, great work, guys, and I appreciate you 1:01:39.080 --> 1:01:39.400 coming on. 1:01:39.720 --> 1:01:41.800 Thanks, I appreciate you for having us. 1:01:43.120 --> 1:01:45.080 Thanks for checking out the show, and thanks to Chris 1:01:45.120 --> 1:01:47.360 and Sam for coming on to talk about the enhanced 1:01:47.400 --> 1:01:51.080 games and their podcast Superhuman. As a reminder, two percent 1:01:51.160 --> 1:01:53.880 is in your feed twice a week, so please subscribe 1:01:53.920 --> 1:01:56.800 so you get those updates. We are always open to 1:01:56.840 --> 1:01:59.600 your questions for our Ask Michael Anything section, Sending the 1:01:59.680 --> 1:02:02.280 media at two pc T dot com or drop me 1:02:02.280 --> 1:02:04.600 in the comments. If you want to watch this on video, 1:02:04.760 --> 1:02:07.760 the free iheartapp allows you to do just that. Give 1:02:07.800 --> 1:02:12.120 them download, watch us on video, and as always, have fun, 1:02:12.640 --> 1:02:13.160 don't die