Real Change Has To Be The Way Forward
By John Cushing Sept 2025
Very disappointed and flabbergasted - if there was one Olympian that I thought might have signed up to the so called Enhanced Games - it wouldn’t have been 50m freestyle swimmer Ben Proud. A hugely successful (in my eyes) gentle giant of a man in the toughest of world swimming events. A stalwart of the British Swimming, now Aquatics GB, team for the last decade, he finally got that elusive Olympic medal in Paris. Aged 30, I understand he now needs to look to the future and despite the popularity of swimming at the Olympics, its being changed to the second week in LA for the first time due to the American audience, it is only once every 4 years so he’s never going to make a fortune from it. But this is where I start to struggle. With the backing of UK Sport (taxpayers cash) and Lottery money, I’m in no doubt he’s been looked after in the latter stages of his career, and in affect everyone single one of us has funded him to do the thing he loves, have a successful career in the pool, and now he’s using that to literally, enhance his own personal gain!
From disappointed, I now feel angry about his switch to this sideshow (I refuse to call it a sport, as its an experiment at best, a freak show at the very worse!). Not only has he tarnished his well earned reputation, he’s damaged that of swimming in this country and made a mockery of it. Its clear from every British swimmer I’ve spoken to in recent days, and the condemnation in a statement from Aquatics GB, that many feel the same. But by saying he’ll compete in an event where competitors can take steroids and other drugs, it allows questions to be asked about his career so far. And he’s also created a media storm for his former Team GB friends and colleagues, as no Olympic athlete will now be interviewed without being asked whether they will join him! There’s some people out there saying the Olympics is too big, it needs to have an alternative and a competition and it’s just like LIV in golf or the Saudi Pro League in football - offering vast amounts of cash for rewards. I don’t doubt the IOC needs to give its athletes more of the share of the cash it earns to its star performers - remember athletics under Seb Coe is the first sport to award thousands of dollars to medalists - gold in Paris, all medalists in LA. Now Seb Coe didn’t win the IOC Presidential election so there’s definitely more work to be done getting that across all sports. But the Enhanced Games is nothing like LIV or the Pro League - it’s far dirtier! Literally. In LIV, you’re still playing the same game? The same for Saudi Pro League and Ronaldo can still play for Portugal. In Las Vegas next year, a man v. man event like swimming, before getting in the pool, you will be able to CHEAT, using drugs. It’s not the same at all.
Sport no doubt has to evolve - why is YouTube so popular? Many of us sit and watch thousands of videos when things go wrong and we laugh at people. The You’ve Been Framed of my generation. But sport - real sport - is seeing the best of the best compete against each other on a level playing field, it can’t be faked, it can’t be taken over by AI. Use the millions of pounds backing this sideshow to give to athletes competing fairly - Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam athletics could do with the cash I understand. Try and influence and change sport for the better - don’t create something else that’s worse, and goes against everything sport and the Olympics stands for - being first but fair.
I hope Ben changes his mind. I hope someone offers him something else that could make him financially better. An athlete coming to the end of their career told me this week, they wanted to get into governance of sport. Help the next generation. Come on Ben, join them, earn a good living and create real change from the inside!
