Aussie swimmer Magnussen has no regrets about drug-taking
Australian swimmer James Magnussen has taken drugs and says he never felt better as he embraces being the pioneer of performance enhancements in sport.
The dual Olympian, the first athlete to sign for Enhanced Games, says other Australians will inevitably join him at the multi-sports event without drug testing.
Magnussen will be a centrepiece of Enhanced Games' launch in Las Vegas tomorrow.
Australian-born entrepreneur Aron D'Souza, with financial backing from multi-billionaires, will detail dates and venue for next year's inaugural games.
Magnussen is the poster boy for an event featuring swimming, track and field and weightlifting, which financiers say will be a shop-front for an anti-ageing industry potentially worth trillions of dollars.
Magnussen recently took his first course of performance enhancements over eight to 10 weeks in the United States.
"Having to inject yourself with a performance enhancing substance is quite a confronting thing," Magnussen told AAP in an interview in Las Vegas yesterday.
"A lot of it's just the stigma attached to it that has been built up over years that probably started way back in the '80s, and I'd been brought up with.
"That [injecting] was the most confronting thing about the whole process. But then it just becomes part of your routine. You get your doctor's check-ups, you go through the process and you realise it's no drama.
"If there had have been negative side effects on my health or my fertility or anything like that, then I would question my involvement.
"But now I've done it, I'm the first athlete to openly and honestly do it, and I know the data, I'm very comfortable with it.
"Not only will my data help me for my preparation, hopefully it's pioneering for the other athletes that come on board."
There were "pros and cons" for the 34-year-old freestyler who won an Olympic silver and two bronze medals before retiring after the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Magnussen's general health improved; his swimming didn't.
Medicos told Magnussen he "might put on a bit of muscle" in four to six weeks after starting enhancements.
"Within 10 days, I put on 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) of muscle," he said.
"I just was getting bigger and stronger and my strength just went through the roof.
"Halfway through my protocol, I probably could have gone to a 50-metre swimming race or Mr Olympia.
"I was just getting so big and so strong and we didn't know that would happen.
"In terms of health metrics, my resting heart rate lowered, my blood pressure lowered, my cholesterol lowered – my fitness was really good.
"They were the things that I think everyone was worried about and they were actually not an issue at all."
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