Cate Campbell: “(Athletes using) Performance-Enhancing Drugs are called Cheats for a Reason.”

Following the massive 20.88 World Record 50 freestyle swim from fellow countryman Cam McEvoy at the China Open, four-time Olympian Cate Campbell questioned the credibility of the Enhanced Games, as the time swum by McEvoy was not only faster than Cesar Cielo‘s 2009 World Record of 20.91, but also quicker than Kristian Gkolomeev‘s unofficial record time of 20.89 from last year as an enhanced athlete with the Enhanced Games.

The swim from McEvoy immediately put the Enhanced Games on notice, breaking the more than a decade-and-a-half-old standard in a clean swim without a supersuit, which both Cielo and Gkolomeev wore in 2009 and last year, respectively.

“I think it had hype but not credibility,” Campbell said in a report first published by Wide World of Sports. “We are still not at our limits of human capacities – Cam McEvoy is a prime example of that. He is figuring out how to swim faster by training smarter, not harder.”

The training regimen that McEvoy follows is vastly different from what most sprinters do on a day-to-day basis, as he swims a lower volume and high-speed training that he has found works best.

“We want kids to look at someone like McEvoy, who has incredible integrity, but is also willing to take risks, try something new, and do that within the rules set by the sport,” Campbell added. “Relying on performance-enhancing drugs is a lazy way to get to high-performance.”

Campbell is among the most recent in a long line of top talents in the sport to openly speak out against the Enhanced Games and its mission, though its financial benefits for athletes have pulled several away from competing clean.

“(Athletes using) performance-enhancing drugs are called cheats for a reason. Instead of wanting to do the work, they are putting something artificial into their body to help enhance their performance.” Campbell said to Wide World of Sports. “If they took all of that time, money, and research and put it into better training, better nutrition … we have barely scratched the surface of what we human beings are capable of because there’s still so much about ourselves that we don’t know.”

She explained the draw that the money plays on the Enhanced Games, but also pointed out that the number of athletes who have followed the money over to the Enhanced Games is outweighed by the number who have stayed clean.

“I understand the draw of it because athletes, particularly in Olympic sports, are not properly remunerated. They’re not able to earn as much as they would be able to if they were in another professional sport.” Campbell said. “It speaks to the real integrity of people who go into Olympic sports that there are so few people who have been tempted to go across for a really big payday.”

Campbell, who is one of the most decorated swimmers to have ever come out of Australia, feels that we are still far from seeing what the human body is capable of in a safe manner, without the use of performance-enhancing substances.

“Let’s continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, but let’s do it in a way that teaches us something, so we’re learning more about the human body and how we respond to certain stimulus or training information while (being) safe.”