Hunter Armstrong beats PED-using rivals at Enhanced Games with completely clean swim

Enhanced Games is a competition built around the idea that medically supervised performance enhancement could push athletes beyond human limits. But American swimmer Hunter Armstrong won the competition clean.

Drug-free Hunter Armstrong outswims enhanced rivals

Hunter emerged victorious in the men’s 50m backstroke without any performance-enhancing drugs. He beat competitors who openly embraced the event’s enhancement protocols. Armstrong clocked 24.21 seconds to take gold and pocket a reported $250,000 prize. Immediately afterward, he underwent blood and urine testing to prove he had remained drug-free throughout the competition. “I’m a man of my word,” Hunter said.

Hunter Armstrong was born in Dover, Ohio, Armstrong emerged from a relatively modest swimming background. The 6-foot-6 swimmer attended Dover High School and later competed for both West Virginia University and Ohio State University, where he went onto become an elite sprint backstroker and freestyle relay weapon.

He qualified for Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics in 2022. He won Olympic gold as part of the American men’s 4x100m medley relay team, helping the United States reclaim supremacy in one of swimming’s marquee events. He later added another Olympic gold in Paris as part of the 4x100m freestyle relay, along with a silver in the medley relay.

But Armstrong’s defining individual breakthrough came in 2022. At the US International Team Trials, he blasted to a world record in the 50m backstroke with a stunning 23.71 seconds and became one of the few swimmers in history to dip below 24 seconds in the event.

Nicknamed ‘The Magic Man’ for his personality and love of literal magic tricks, Armstrong has long stood out in the sport. Unlike other athletes, he is outspoken, eccentric, patriotic, and occasionally unpredictable.

It does not suddenly mean performance-enhancing drugs are useless. Elite sport has never worked that simply. But Armstrong’s victory was a reminder that years of training, race instinct, technique and pure talent still matter more than any shortcut people are trying to sell. And for the organisers, that probably was not the headline they were hoping for.

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