Australian Swimmer Is Being Offered $1 Million To Dope His Way To World Record

Australian swimmer James "The Missile" Magnussen is planning his attack for how he will try to break the world record in the 50-meter freestyle.

And by "plan his attack" I mean he's trying to figure out the best way to legally and ethically dope so he can win a million dollars.

You may recall that billionaire Peter Thiel was the latest investor in the Enhanced Games, a bizarro version of the Olympics in which athletes aren't discouraged from doping, they're actively encouraged to do anything and everything they can to gain an advantage.

The Games' founder Aron D'Souza heralded them as a way to study the effects of performance enhancers and biohacking. 

That's probably true, but do you know what else it would be? Must-watch television.

Especially if they're doing something like offering athletes huge sums of money to obliterate records that — let's face it — may or may not have been set with the aid of performance enhancers in the first place.

One athlete to get this treatment is Magnussen. The 32-year-old is a retired swimmer who competed at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics. 

His nickname "The Missile" is also very cool.

D'Souza announced that the Enhanced Games was offering Magnussen a cool million to break the record whenever and wherever the inaugural games are held.

D'souza said that part of the reason for this is that many Olympic athletes live in poverty, which is probably true if you think about it. I'm not sure your average Olympic power-walkers or trampoliner (tramplonist?) is raking in the dough. 

So, good on them for that.

Australian swimmer James "The Missile" Magnussen has been offered a million dollars to break the 50-meter freestyle record at the Enhanced Games. (Getty Images)

Magnussen Wants In On The Offer But Will Go About It The "Right" Way

For his part Magnussen accepted the offer… because we would all accept that offer.

"I want to approach this the right way," Magnussen said. "So I want to go to America. I want to get the right advice. I want to take the right supplements. I don’t know much about that world so I want to do my research. I want to have the right team behind me."

It's nice to see that despite years spent underwater, Magnussen still has plenty of brain cells left in that noggin of his. There could be some long-term ramifications if he doesn't approach this properly so getting the right team to juice him up for a 50-meter sprint is the way to go.

Although another reason to have a good team behind you is so that you don't accidentally run afoul of the laws. While the Enhanced Games takes a "Come on in! The water's great!" approach to PEDs and other supplements, some countries have laws against using them.

According to the Associated Press, many performance enhancers are illegal here in the United States. It doesn't seem like the "Nah, it's cool it's so I can win $1 million in the Enhanced Games" defense will hold up in court.

Well, we'll see if he can do it. The current record is 20.91 seconds and was set in 2009 by Brazilian swimmer Cesar Cielo. If you want to be technical about it, he was using a performance enhancer when he set it: a rubberized suit which has since been banned.

Magnussen's personal best is 21.52 seconds. I think there's definitely enough that he can do to find that 6 tenths of a second he needs for $1 million.