Latest news with #worldrecords
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
World's fastest 75-year-old woman: 'Never think that you're too old'
Sarah Roberts is the fastest over-75 woman in history over 800m, 1500m and 3,000m. She started running aged 67 when she was introduced to parkrun while on holiday with her husband in Cape Town in 2017. She now hold a series of world records.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Health
- Irish Times
It wasn't just the decapitated turtles that made those Chinese women run so fast. So what were they on?
As with most seismic episodes in life, I can recall exactly where we were and what we were doing. As international students in the Ivy League, there was no fear of deportation to rattle our worlds in September 1993. But the news that a woman on the other side of the world had just run eight minutes and six seconds for 3,000 metres was shocking. This was among the legion of world records broken by Chinese women at the 1993 Beijing National Games, where six women ran under previous world records in three different events a total of 14 times, wrapped up by the 8:06.11 clocked by Wang Junxia to win the 3,000 metres. It seemed quite simply inconceivable, and the passing of time has only reinforced that notion. We were in our senior year, close to our running prime, and Wang's 8:06.11 was faster than any of us had run on the men's track team, international or otherwise. There was nothing whatsoever sexist or chauvinistic in being dismayed, only the crushing realisation our times were paling into insignificance. I didn't have my ear to the ground so much in those days and the news had come via a weekly call home, as all news usually did, my dad coming on the phone and dispensing with any pleasantries. 'You will not believe this,' he said. The women's 1,500 metre, 3,000 metre and 10,000 metre world records had all been utterly obliterated in Beijing, with a crazy series of times that in no way added up. READ MORE I didn't imagine I'd be writing about them 32 years later. Wang's 3,000 metre time still stands as the world record, for years untouchable. Kenya's Beatrice Chebet, the double Olympic champion from Paris last summer, got closest when she ran 8:11.56 in the Diamond League in Rabat last Sunday. Still more than five seconds off Wang's mark. Maybe we shouldn't have been shocked. After all, we'd already had ample warning of what the Chinese women were capable of. A month before, at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, they pulled off what is now considered one of the great daylight robberies in the long history of track and field – and inextricably entangled with the career of our own Sonia O'Sullivan . In one of her last races before Stuttgart, O'Sullivan clocked 8:30.12 to win the 3,000 metres at the Zurich Golden League, the fastest time in Europe, making her one of the gold medal favourites. At that point in time, little was known about the nine Chinese women runners in Stuttgart, all entered in the 1,500 metres, 3,000 metres and 10,000 metres, and all coached by Ma Junren, who had set up several high-altitude training camps in remote locations around China. Junren had no athletics background, smoked 40 cigarettes a day and admitted losing up to 10 per cent of his athletes through injury. He kept his women distance runners in strict regimental tow, promptly earning them the title Ma's Army. Despite their complete lack of global championship experience, they won all three medals in the 3,000 metres in Stuttgart, led home by Qu Yunxia, relegating O'Sullivan to fourth. [ Sex, drugs and alcohol: Excuses never far away when it comes to doping offences Opens in new window ] Six days later, O'Sullivan did manage to break the Chinese dominance in the 1,500 metres, winning silver behind Liu Dong. Earlier in the week, Wang won the 10,000 metres, meaning the Chinese women claimed six out of a possible nine medals in the three running events they entered. This was only a prelude to what was to come in Beijing a month later. Wang broke three world records, first lowering the 10,000 metre mark to 29:31.78, smashing the 30:17.74 which had stood to Norway's lngrid Kristiansen since 1986. Wang then ran a 3,000 metre world record of 8:12.19 in the heats, before improving that to 8:06.11 in the final. Yunxia also built on her Stuttgart success to break the 1,500 metre world record, running 3:50.46. The previous records there had stood to Tatyana Kazankina from the former Soviet Union, whose career ended abruptly in 1984 when she was suspended for 18 months for refusing to do a drugs test. God knows what kind of anti-doping programme was in place in Beijing in 1993 but none of Ma's Army ever failed a test. Yunxia's 1,500 metre record stood for 22 years, and Wang's 10,000 metre record for 23 years. Junren always put their success down to their marathon-a-day training, plus his own range of Chinese potions, including the warm blood of a freshly decapitated turtle. The following summer, O'Sullivan improved her Irish 3,000 metre record to 8:21.64 at Crystal Palace in London, the fastest time ever run outside of China, and which stood as the European record for eight years. After winning the 5,000 metres at the 1995 World Championships in Helsinki, O'Sullivan pushed herself harder again when preparing for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, possibly too hard. Wang won gold in the 5,000 metres, and silver in the 10,000 metres. [ World Anti-Doping Agency faces crisis after US government withholds funding Opens in new window ] According to Chinese state media reports, released in February 2016, all nine of Ma's Army in Stuttgart were forced to take 'large doses of illegal drugs over the years'. A letter, signed by Wang and her eight team-mates in 1995, also detailed the regime of state-sponsored doping. In October 2017 there was further evidence , former Chinese team doctor Xue Yinxian telling German broadcaster ARD that all medals won by Chinese athletes in the 1980s and 1990s should be handed back, given they were 'showered in doping'. Maybe it is too late now for those medals to be returned, or for those record times to be erased, but one question remains: what on earth were they taking? They'd clearly discovered some unique concoction of banned substances to be that far ahead of everyone else in 1993, including us poor and innocent hopefuls in the Ivy League.
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
What are the Enhanced Games and why are they controversial?
The multi-sport Enhanced Games will allow athletes to use performance-enhancing substances without being subject to drug behind the proposal claim it will be the 'Olympics of the future', allowing athletes to take drugs in a bid to break 'world records'.Founder Aron D'Souza believes athletes should be entitled to do what they wish with their own the Australian businessman's concept has been heavily criticised for the potential impact on athletes' health, and undermining fair Anti-Doping (Ukad) said last year its mission was "to protect sport from doping cheats". It added: "There is no place in sport for performance-enhancing drugs, nor the Enhanced Games."At a launch event on Wednesday, Las Vegas was announced as the host of the inaugural Enhanced Games, which will run from 21-24 May said that under their permitted conditions, Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev had gone quicker than the 50m freestyle world record, which has stood since 2009. How have the Enhanced Games come about? D'Souza's idea has been backed by a venture capital fund which includes Donald Trump Jr - the son of the US president - and billionaire entrepreneur Peter was first launched as a concept in 2023, when it was presented as an opportunity to beat world records for cash prizes up to $1m (£746,570).World Athletics president Lord Coe has said taking part would be "moronic", and any competitor would face a lengthy ban.D'Souza said his concept - which he wants to make an annual feature - was "truly extraordinary" and "shaping the future".The first Enhanced Games will consist of events in short-course swimming, sprinting and weightlifting. Are there limits on substances competitors can take? Participants are permitted to use some substances that are banned from elite sport, but cocaine and heroin are among those substances approved by the United States' Food and Drug Administration, external (FDA) can be taken. That is a different list to the one the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) allows for elite athletes. Who will compete at the Enhanced Games? Gkolomeev is among those who will swimmer Andriy Govorov, who holds the world record for the 50m butterfly, and Bulgaria's Josif Miladinov - a European silver medallist in the 100m butterfly - have also signed former world champion James Magnussen came out of retirement to join the Enhanced Games in article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team. What is Ask Me Anything? Ask Me Anything is a service dedicated to answering your want to reward your time by telling you things you do not know and reminding you of things you team will find out everything you need to know and be able to call upon a network of contacts including our experts and will be answering your questions from the heart of the BBC Sport newsroom, and going behind the scenes at some of the world's biggest sporting coverage will span the BBC Sport website, app, social media and YouTube accounts, plus BBC TV and radio. More questions answered... Has F1's iconic Monaco Grand Prix become boring?What does Hotspur mean?What is World Sevens Football?When did the New York Knicks last win the NBA Championship?
Times
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Times
Billions will watch drug-fuelled Olympics, says Enhanced Games founder
Later this month Aron D'Souza will step on stage in Las Vegas to unveil what may be the most controversial sporting event of the century. In a city better known for spectacle than scruples, the Australian-born, Oxford-educated entrepreneur will announce the venue for the inaugural Enhanced Games, an Olympics-style tournament where athletes will be expected to take performance-enhancing drugs. 'We're announcing the host city, the first roster of athletes,' D'Souza said this week. 'It's all finally coming together.' When the games commence, he expects billions to watch, lured by the promise of human performance unshackled by the constraints of anti-doping rules. Athletes who might otherwise be filing for retirement will, he claimed, be gunning for 'the most important world records', with million-dollar bonuses awaiting those who break them. Substances once whispered about in locker rooms — steroids, EPO, testosterone and more — will take centre stage. Competitors will not hide their drug regimens behind code words or plausible deniability; they will collaborate with medics to optimise them. The inaugural games will be held in the US, he said. Exactly where is under wraps until the Las Vegas launch event, planned for May 21. For now, what he will reveal is the ambition: a viewership to rival the World Cup, a fundamental shift in how the world thinks about fair play, and a new roster of athletic role models — all of them 'enhanced'. • Matt Dickson: Olympics for dopers will prove that sport is enhanced by striving and struggle But the games will not only be about the athletes, he explained. They will be a showcase for science — a chance for nations to prove themselves not just in the pool or on the track, but in the lab. 'Why shouldn't Team GB be backed by AstraZeneca and Oxford? Imagine a world where your scientists are national heroes, creating the fastest humans ever.' He likens it to motor racing: 'You need both the driver and the car. Here, it's the athlete and their science team.' A million-dollar bonus awaits anyone who breaks a 'major world record', a gesture D'Souza said he saw as long-overdue redress. 'The Olympics turned athletes into unpaid billboards while the bureaucrats fly on private jets,' he said. 'The Enhanced Games flips the model. A million dollars to anyone who breaks the most important world records. No apologies. No hypocrisy.' And who could these record-breakers be? He refused to give names, but said that athletes who would normally be considered as past their prime have signed up. 'But that's the point. If someone who should be 'retired' can come back and outrun Usain Bolt, that's the real paradigm shift.' Last year the retired Australian swimmer James Magnussen, 34, a two-time former world champion and Olympic medallist, said that he was interested. 'If they put up $1 million for the 50 [metre] freestyle world record, I will come on board as their first athlete,' he told the SEN radio network. 'I'll juice to the gills and I'll break it in six months.' Predictably, the sporting establishment is horrified. But D'Souza is not merely presenting the Enhanced Games as the future of athletics. Over a Zoom call from his office in New York, he explained how he expected enhanced athletes in their forties to perform at levels only usually seen in much younger competitors — an inspirational feat, he suggested, and one that he believes will have to be mirrored at scale if the ageing West is to remain solvent. • Team GB athletes interested in competing in Olympics for dopers 'The objective of this project was never just to host a sporting event,' he said. 'It's to create a movement — one where people live longer, healthier, more productive lives. Because if we don't, ageing and ill health will bankrupt us.' He cited the looming crisis facing the NHS as an example of the stakes. Falling birthrates and longer lives will mean, he said, that soon there will not enough young people to pay taxes to support the elderly. 'Until now, the solution to that problem, that demographic problem, has been the importation of immigrants,' he said. 'That's led to a housing crisis in the United Kingdom. It has led to all sorts of cultural issues, like with the rise of Reform and these anti-immigration parties. But there's actually a technological solution — performance medicine.' He argued that the elderly, given the right drugs, would be able to support themselves, their abilities boosted like the competitors in his sporting spectacle. 'We need to extend healthy life expectancy,' he said. 'That means embracing the medical tools already available — from testosterone therapy to advanced biotechnology — to stay younger for longer. If we can make 60 the new 40, we will save our welfare systems.' His pitch has met with success, albeit among a rarefied crowd. Last year, the Enhanced Games announced that it had secured a multimillion-dollar investment from venture capitalists, including the Trump-supporting billionaire Peter Thiel. In February, Donald Trump Jr, the president's son, said that his venture fund would also be involved. 'The Enhanced Games represent the future — real competition, real freedom, and real records being smashed,' Trump Jr explained. 'This is about excellence, innovation, and American dominance on the world stage — something the Maga movement is all about.' Last month it emerged that Rob McElhenney, the Hollywood actor who co-owns Wrexham AFC, plans to make a 'provocative documentary series' about the Enhanced Games. For his part, D'Souza said that he was baffled by the lack of mainstream commercial appeal for track events and swimming, outside the Olympic spotlight. 'Pro swimming and athletics? They've never been properly monetised. We'll change that.' He planned to unleash footage for free, leaving distribution to social media. 'We're not hiding the Games behind paywalls. This isn't the Premier League or Netflix,' he said. 'This is Red Bull meets Formula 1 meets TikTok.' Of course, the lingering question is safety. Don't the side-effects of anabolic steroids include everything from baldness and acne to delirium, high blood-pressure and (for males) the development of milk-producing breasts? 'Define safe,' he said. 'Space travel isn't safe. Climbing Everest isn't safe. Yet we call these pursuits noble. The Enhanced Games? Safer than both.' He argued that millions of people already use enhancements such as testosterone, including Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US secretary of health. 'Around 6 per cent of British men have tried underground steroids. But we're talking about doing this under medical supervision, with legal substances. Most of what we're using isn't even banned in the US.' There will be rules; insurance would be impossible otherwise. Competitors will not be allowed to use illegal drugs. 'And you can't chop off your legs and put springy carbon fibre legs on … Everything has to be legal where the athlete lives and competes. But that's the genius of it — if countries want to win, they'll have to liberalise their laws. It's a new metric for national innovation.' He returned to his central thesis: this is, he insisted, about more than sport. 'This is a cultural revolution. We're redefining ageing. We're showing that life doesn't peak at 25.' That is why he believes the Enhanced Games will resonate beyond sports fans. 'Most people don't care about who won the high jump. But they care about ageing. They care about health. Imagine a 50-year-old breaking world records. That's a message that changes minds.' The Enhanced Games may be divisive, even dystopian to some. As far as D'Souza is concerned, they are the future — and the starting pistol is about to fire.
