{"id":503405,"date":"2026-05-25T22:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=503405"},"modified":"2026-05-25T23:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:25:17","slug":"magnussen-fires-back-at-aussie-champ-after-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=503405","title":{"rendered":"Magnussen fires back at Aussie champ after flop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Aussie Olympians have exchanged barbs after the controversial Enhanced Games<\/a> was roundly criticised following its inaugural event on Monday.<\/p>\n

\ufeffParis 2024 gold medallist Cam McEvoy<\/a> took a thinly veiled swipe at the athletes with an Instagram story on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

A Gordon Ramsay meme was accompanied by the text, "\ufeffSeriously? That all you got?".<\/p>\n

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McEvoy has been a vocal critic of the Enhanced Games, which encourages athletes to take performance enhancing drugs in an attempt to break records in the pool and on the track.<\/p>\n

His former Aussie Olympic teammate James Magnussen<\/a> was the poster boy for the controversial event, but he finished dead last in the two races he took part in.<\/p>\n

In fact only one world record was broken – unofficially – and that was McEvoy's 50m freestyle mark, bettered by \ufeffGreek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev who pocketed $1.4 million for the achievement.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

Magnussen took home just $70,000, but defended his performances when speaking to 9News later in the night.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffThere are bigger opportunities involved in this than just the prize money on the night," he told 9News.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffWe wanted to turn heads, and we turned heads."<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> in a separate interview, Magnussen hit back at McEvoy.<\/p>\n

"Cam's sitting at home talking about us. We're not talking about Cam," he said.<\/p>\n

The Games were roundly labelled a flop following the inaugural event, which was held in Las Vegas and attracted minimal interest from spectators.<\/p>\n

Gkolomeev celebrated when he shaved 0.7 seconds off McEvoy's 50m freestyle record, but overall the athletes failed to break records despite most of them using WADA-banned substances to enhance their performance.<\/p>\n

\"Kristian<\/p>\n

Ben Proud was not far \ufeffbehind Gkolomeev as the quartet approached the wall, touching in for a personal best time of 20.98. Magnussen finished last out of four in 22.35. The Australian's personal best in his prime years for the 50m freestyle was 21.52.\ufeff<\/p>\n

It is the second time in the space of 12 months that Gkolomeev has beaten the world record set by a clean athlete, earning a combined total of $2.7m AUD for his record-breaking efforts.<\/p>\n

"Another million – I'm going to say that's not bad at all," Gkolomeev said.<\/p>\n

"This is going to change my life for good, that's for sure."<\/p>\n

But even with a new record to his name, Gkolomeev still wants more. \ufeff<\/p>\n

"Maybe next year I will break it again," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Magnussen<\/p>\n

Magnussen took to the blocks at the Enhanced Games wearing a \ufeffcustom-made gold performance-enhancing suit, designed to commemorate the fact he was the first athlete to sign on to compete in the event.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Pan Zhanle's 100m freestyle world record of 46.40 was the first target for all four swimmers competing in the men's freestyle events, with a prize of $1.4m AUD up for grabs for lowering the mark. But Magnussen was more than \ufeffthree seconds off recording that time, touching the wall in a pedestrian 49.44 – well short of the 47.10 personal best he set in his prime.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old broke the water last after the starting buzzer sounded and struggled to catch up to Gkolomeev and clean athlete Hunter Armstrong in the opening 50.<\/p>\n

Gkolomeev sat more than a body length ahead of the field as he turned to complete the final lap.<\/p>\n

\ufeffHis pace looked on track to topple Zhanle's time, but he fell just short, recording a 40.60.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/ErinMarsico\/status\/2058727111033287137<\/a><\/p>\n

Magnussen \ufefffollowed well behind Gkolomeev, touching the wall in fourth place (of four swimmers) in 49.44.<\/p>\n

Even though his time was slower than he hoped, Magnussen still had a smile on his face.<\/p>\n

Gkolomeev was content with his time despite narrowly missing out on the huge prize for breaking the world record – a feat he would achieve soon after in the shorter sprint event. \ufeff<\/p>\n

"\ufeffIt was a good race. I am really happy, very close to the world record," he said after receiving assistance from Magnussen to take off the top part of his suit post-race.<\/p>\n

\"(L-R)<\/p>\n

"I really wanted to (break the world record) but that's OK.<\/p>\n

"I tried to save some energy for the second 50 but at the end I died a little bit."<\/p>\n

Despite missing the record, Gkolomeev still earned \ufeff$348,000 AUD for his efforts in the 100m sprint race. Magnussen won just shy of $70,000 for coming fourth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Aussie Olympians have exchanged barbs after the controversial Enhanced Games was roundly criticised following its inaugural event on Monday. \ufeffParis 2024 gold medallist Cam […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=503405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503412,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503405\/revisions\/503412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/503407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=503405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=503405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=503405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}