There has been a whirlwind of news surrounding three-time Olympian Shane Ryan of Ireland in recent days.
In just a span of a week, the 31-year-old announced his decision to retire from competitive swimming. But, just days later, he revealed he would be joining the controversial Enhanced Games.
Ryan joined a growing list of accomplished swimmers who have joined the Games, joining male sprinters Ben Proud, Kristian Gkolomeev, James Magnussen, Andrii Govorov, Marius Kusch, and Josif Miladinov, while American Megan Romano became the first female to join the organization in early August.
As a refresher, the Enhanced Games are a multi-sport competition where athletes are allowed to use performance-enhancing substances without being subject to drug testing. The inaugural edition of the Games is slated for Las Vegas in May of 2026.
Ryan recently spoke to the media regarding his reasoning for joining the Enhanced Games bandwagon, citing his need ‘to put himself first.’
“If I try to go for the next Olympic Games, I’ll be 34 years old,” Ryan told RTÉ Radio 1’s Drivetime show. “My shoulders and body would not probably hold up as well. I had to take a step back, and kind of reconsider.
“When I step out into the real world financially, what do I have? Sadly, Olympic athletes do not get paid well at all.
“It is a financial decision but also an opportunity for me to be part of something that’s new and exciting.
“I was on €18,000 for a number of years and trying to compete and train. Trying to have a job doing that, especially with swimming, is very, very difficult.
“That’s below minimum wage, especially in Ireland. I was living in Dublin for a very, very long time representing Ireland for over a decade and sacrificed friends and family, missing weddings.
“What I need to do now is actually put myself first,” he said. “Financially, I’m making over six figures for nine months and then potentially making over $600,000 (€517,000) when it comes down the line.
“I’m going to be doing two events, the 100m freestyle and the 50m backstroke in May, and if I win one of those events, I get $250,000 (€216,000). Then if I win both of those, that’s a half a million dollars on top of what I’m earning right now. For me, as an athlete that’s 31 years old, this is like kind of a jumpstart financially.
“Financially this is a huge thing. I’ve honed a craft for my whole life and I want to take the opportunity. I’ve talked to a lot of people that are actually outside the swimming world that are super excited. They’re like, ‘Shane, you’d be stupid not to take this opportunity’.”
“Everyone thinks that once I join the Enhanced Games that I’m taking drugs – I’m not. I’m a clean athlete still right now,” he said.
“We’re here in Las Vegas until December and we are training completely clean. When it comes down to January to March, we’re going to Abu Dhabi to do a case study, a test, where we’ll be only on it for maybe at most two months, but everyone’s different.
“There’s always a chance that it could potentially affect [my body] in the wrong way but I’m willing to accept that choice and accept that consequence, potentially, if it does.”
We’ll see what transpires next year in Las Vegas.
Something seems fundamentally wrong with our sport if elite athletes feel they need to join the enhanced games just to make a buck.
thanks chatgpt
Human being the name is perfect lol
I dislike the EG and their creepy founders as much as anyone.
At the same time, I’m not putting up any money to keep elite swimmers in the legit sport, so my opinions aren’t worth much. I bet Shane would rather someone offer him $100k to keep training for the next Olympics, but nobody is.
More than a few things can be done here to help athletes considering making this choice.
1. Teach them about the road they are on and have a hard talk about the financial realities of the career of a professional swimmer. This should be done by the NGBs and it could be done for all Olympic sports.
2. Stop talking about this all the time and don’t even acknowledge it – steroid-aided sport isn’t sport, it’s a carnival. Blow it off.
3. Continue to be very clear about the repercussions to these athletes career. Remove them from Hall of Fame consideration and any position of authority they may seek later.
So much of this revolves around money and… Read more »
The almost boilerplate response just feels a bit odd and gives a weird vibe. Is that part of a script that these swimmers have to say? seems like all include and disclose their “regular” income (or how much they got paid by being a national swimmer) when they were asked about why. I understand swimmers don’t get pay much but it is interesting to see everyone come out to say exactly how much they make in the past.
(question: are they not allowed to disclose their stipend when they are part of national team?)
Prepped talking points
One major reason I don’t see the EGs going anywhere major is because the athletes that are signing are doing it due to a survival need. Most of these athletes aren’t waking up excited to be a part of this, like everyone thinks. All of their statements make it sound like it’s a simple need and or business move. Maybe James M is an exception. But the EGs seem to be targeting athletes whom they know need the money, and building their roster around that. Can a whole league and model survive when only people need the financial aspect of it, but don’t love the overall? We shall see…..I don’t think so, but you never know….
Agree.
Basically, anyone there has no soul, or sold their soul.
Oh, I fully believe this is meant to undermine and destabilize Olympic sport. If that goal succeeds, there is most definitely no intention of giving a life line to the athlete’s. It’s just a big ego trip
(No excuse for the systemic issues with Olympic sport this is exploiting to not be addressed)
I’d like to agree. Real swim fans will probably check out EG1 for the novelty, but I doubt there will be many year-in-year-out competitors (both because the long-term effects of steroids, and diminishing interest in seeing the same people every year).
I see a few ways to keep it going though:
This is a good observation. As Brett Hawke descends into his drug-fueled psychosis (if anyone follows him on IG, they know it gets cringier and cringier by the day as he tries to paint himself as some kind of renaissance man), the culture is going to get even more strained. I’d be shocked if they all made it to the meet.
(Bro has multiple alt accounts that he’s using to try and juice the algorithm on his personal account, not realizing that you can’t juice the algo for purchased followers).
It’s not survival need. Just get a job, like anyone else. I get there’s an argument that this is a job, and it pays better than entry level positions likely to be open to former athletes elsewhere. But honestly, many employers have values that they look for in their employees. Once all this is over (which it will be in not that long) and most of these athletes haven’t broken a world record and made life changing money that’s set them up forever – what’s next? How many doors have closed?
Hopefully we don’t get 10 articles for every single former swimmer who goes this route. Let’s not celebrate this.
And it would be good if the writers of the articles stuck to facts. This one talks about a growing number of accomplished swimmers who have joined. Seriously? There are currently 8 – 2 of whom were long-retired when they signed up and probably 2 at best who you could honestly say would likely final at a WCs. In reality, it’s a small number of swimmers either reaching the end or past the end of their careers who want a big payday. I’ll be very surprised if any one who isn’t past it signs up.
I’ll ignore it all. Eff ’em.
I did not think that 50 back was one of the events that they were offering.
Didn’t Shane earn money from SCM Worlds, the World Cup etc? Did he do the ISL? What happened to the money if he only made $21,000 / year?
Shhhhh don’t let facts get in the way of his narrative