Hello and welcome to the Swim Brief. I'm Chris DeSantis. This is a solo brief today, and I'm recording another one of these because so many listeners have reached out to me about my podcast last week that was all about Brett Hawk and his decision to go full-time on the enhanced games. That I just thought I would respond to some of the questions I've been getting, some of the comments I've been getting from listeners, and also just cover some of the other stuff that's happened alongside this during this past week. I think, as I said, you know, I'm not somebody who loves to get wrapped up in the day-to-day news, but I'm always interested in the cultural conversation. And this is another one of those instances where I think there's a really important cultural conversation happening. And I think it's important to get some of this stuff out here and keep keep the conversation in a place that is moral and ethical and right. So we're going to do that today. Um, I'm just going to take some of these things one at a time and respond to them because there's so much to go through. Um the first one that I want to highlight is uh David Arlock. I actually had the chance to meet David Arlock um when I was at the CSCAA conference last month. Uh I think I've met him maybe one or two more times in person. I'm getting to that age where it's hard to say. Um, you know, but we've never had a chance to really like have an extended conversation. I talked to him for, I don't know, maybe 30, 40 minutes. And um I've always had a favorable impression of David himself. I'm not the biggest fan of uh Fitter or Faster. When we're having like a moral ethical conversation, I have a lot of respect for Fitter and Faster, and I have a lot of respect for David Arlock. Um, so I was I was uh feeling good to read. Um he he posted to uh his social media channels this comment on top of what USA Swimming had sent out um in relation to some of the announcements with the enhanced games. He said, any athlete who knowingly uses performance-enhancing drugs banned by Wada or USADA will not be invited to lead a fitter and faster swim camp. Likewise, any coach who knowingly supports or coaches such an athlete is not welcome in our program. The mentors we place in front of young swimmers shape the future of our sport, and we take that responsibility seriously. You know, you don't have to read too far between the lines to know that this is a direct response, but for those of you not in the know, there is important context to this, and that is that Brett Hawk was prominently involved in Fitter and Faster for a number of years. So I can imagine that David felt like he had to say something given his prior relationship with Brett. And and frankly, I I think he had always been very outwardly positive about his partnership um with Brett when Brett was working there. So um this is somebody who had a positive view, I would say, of Brett Hawk, perhaps going into this decision, coming out pretty strongly uh against it. There were a couple parts of the statement. Um I'm a nitpicker, so I am gonna pick apart a couple pieces of this that I find interesting. It's actually, you know, it's it's it's two things. One is the first part of the statement, he says knowingly uses performance-enhancing drugs. And I feel like he's giving himself some wiggle room there. Um, we have had a number of athletes that challenge their uh performance-enhancing drug sanctions. Basically, that's the most common defense when you go to arbitrate some of this stuff. Oh, my supplements are contaminated, et cetera, et cetera. So um I don't think that this statement, if I take it correctly, uh, means that athletes that have received a doping sanction are going to be unwelcome at Fitter and Faster. Um, but if they're sanctioned, and the sanction includes sort of the judgment of the of Wada or Usada or whoever's handing it down, that that they knowingly ingested, or in not only ingested, right, but but took performance-enhancing drugs, then they're gonna be banned from fitter and faster, but it's still gonna be open to the other. The second part of this, and it leads me into the second one of these I want to read, um, which is from Iska, is it doesn't mention Brett Hawk. And I know, look, it's very easy to read between the lines, but also why? Why make people read between the lines? Tell Brett just come out and say, Brett, you're not welcome here. I mean, um that's what I would like to see people do, right? Uh, I don't see any reason to tiptoe around this. Brett is now a coach, like reading in the statement, who knowingly supports or coaches athletes that are knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. So go for it. Mention him. The ISCA statement, I'm not going to read the whole thing because it's like eight paragraphs, and a lot of people got sent it. Um, it's an ISCA statement on fairness, integrity, and and future of the sport. Um, you know, there's a there's an intro about, you know, what is the sport all about? Then they go on to say ISCA does not support the use of performance-enhancing drugs in any sanctioned competition. While we respect personal autonomy and the decisions individuals make in their personal lives, we believe that allowing PEDs in sports compromises the value of fair play, athlete safety, and long-term health. Events that promote the use of PEDs send the wrong message to athletes, especially youth, and undermine the purpose of competition. If we normalize the use of PEDs now, what comes next? So, this is some of the same ethical considerations that I made. Uh and I you could say I included the same caveat when I said, I don't really care what anybody does in their personal lives, um, you know, if they want to get on testosterone replacement therapy, which incidentally we'll get to in a second. Uh, Brett Hawk announced that he is now going to do, um, in case you can't hear it in the tone of my voice, I I don't believe that he's not already been doing it. But okay, I read that part as addressing that. Um and otherwise, you know, there's this long, there's this long statement. Excuse all the throat clearing on this. I'm just getting over a cold here at the the Sumbrief headquarters. Um, there's this long statement, and and there's again no mention of Brett. Come out and say it. Say he's not welcome. I don't I I do not understand why anyone is not just specifically saying this this announcement. We all know what the announcement is about, but why not just say it? Say it. Okay. I think we need people to be, especially in this situation, a little bit more brave, show a little bit more leadership, um, and go all the way, right? And come and say it. Um, so Brett did make a separate announcement, which was, you know, hey, I'm approaching 50 and I want to feel good and et cetera, et cetera. Um I'm gonna, you know, go talk to a doctor and I'm gonna go on TRT now, right? Um, which just before before I give him a hard time about the fact that I I don't believe him, I think he's probably been doing this for years, just look at Brett. This is a world-class, you know, Olympic sprinter, um, somebody who was very muscular in his athletic prime, that is somehow more muscular now, uh, going into his late 50s. Uh, just if you sort of know a lot about how that all goes, um you know how improbable that is, unless you have some hormonal support. And by the way, I don't care if he does. I don't care if he has been for a long time. I say, do whatever you like. Um, it's your body, it's your health. And at this point, you know, him uh racing a 50-free on a relay at Masters Nationals and then chickening out because he's scared to lose to D3 All Americans who actually train hard and you know watch um watch carefully what they eat and you know take good care of themselves. I I understand that. That's that's all his choice. He can do any part of that he wants to, um, and he's welcome to continuing to do it. Um, one of my listeners chimed in um because you know, uh uh Brett uh is perhaps one of the people who's maybe a little bit more on the let's say the conservative side of the political spectrum, um, with the supposition that, you know, essentially what Brett is doing for himself is he's getting some gender-affirming care. Um one would suspect that maybe he's not for other people, like trans people, getting gender-affirming care. Um, but he definitely wants some gender-affirming care so he can feel more masculine and more manly here as he approaches 50. And I say gender-affirming care for all. Um the last thing I want to respond to is just some of the ethical concerns that we have um that we're running into as a result of this because Brett also published a blog. Um and I I again you're you're you're only listening to me, you're not seeing me. Um I would put giant scare quotes around Brett publishing a blog. Um maybe I'm gonna divert here too for a second. Um I don't suggest you read it. I'm gonna talk respond to some of the things inside it. Um why don't I suggest you read it? First off, it's it's not good. Um it's it's not arguing for something that I think is moral and ethical, but uh here's another sort of writer quibble with me. I want you, if you do end up reading it, I want you to picture Brett Hawk saying these words, okay? Because when I read it, it's very clear to me that in some shape or form Brett did not write this. I don't know whether somebody else ghostwrit it, wrote ghost read it, ghostwrote it for him, and he got to publish it under his name. Somebody, you know, sort of anonymous within the enhanced games did it, or maybe um, you know, Brett like f asked Chat GPT to write this for him. I uh it just it is very obvious when you're reading something whether it's in that author's voice. I mean, go go on my website, go to my blog section, read my blogs. You will hear, you'll you will hear the same person that you're listening to on this podcast. If you meet me in person, you're like, oh yeah, that's Chris. That's in Chris's voice. So this this is to me, is not at all in in Brett's voice. Um maybe he had the same ghostwriter or AI writer that he had for his science of swimming book. Yes, he did write a science of swimming book. Um we don't have time to deal with all the Brett Hawk um shenanigans, but uh in this blog post, he's laying out some of the arguments for the enhanced games, and I want to get into one of them because I have it's it's not only been within this, but it's also you've heard it from James Magnuson, you've heard it from Christian Golkameev, Golomeev, I'm still struggling with that name. I'm gonna learn it um if I have to say it one more time. And um, you know, that argument essentially and along the ethical lines goes like, hey, listen, you know, there are people pushing the boundaries anyway. We all know, you know, regular, the regular old Olympics is not on the level. There are people that are um that are hiding their PED use, right? Um, because there are sanctions against it. And here's what we want to do is we want to bring this stuff out into the open. We want to make it medically supervised, and that way, you know, the the more or less the same thing's gonna be happening, but it's we're actually we're gonna be safer than the Olympics, where people are doing this in a clandestine way, they maybe don't have the same level of medical supervision, and you know, they're they're opening themselves up to potentially disastrous side effects from their performance enhancing drug use. And I think that is 100% a crock of shit, and I'll tell you why. Um because nowhere in any of the materials they've sent out have they established how in any shape or form they will be restricting or controlling athletes' use of performance-enhancing drugs. So essentially what they're doing is right, they're gonna have like an MD, you know, somebody with prescribing power who's going to be putting some of these athletes on steroids, putting them on, you know, peptides, etc., all sorts of stuff that's banned by WATA. And I would assume, you know, doing blood, regular blood testing, etc., sort of monitoring their health. But are they gonna be drug testing? I mean, they they imply that there is some line, right? That they're they're only gonna be helping people enhance in sort of a medically acceptable way. But do we really think that the athletes that sign up for this are gonna go, okay, yes, uh, yes, sir, I will only take the PEDs that you give me, nothing else. I'm just gonna stop there. Come on, don't be naive, okay? Don't be naive. There will be people pushing the boundary. Where you put the line, wherever you say, okay, this is what is acceptable, there will be people trying to push beyond that line. And that is why it is so important that we have a line. Because I I I just want to reiterate this point because I go back to, and I sort of said this in my previous podcast, but yeah, you can look at, I I mean, I I agree with them. When I look at the Olympics, I think there's a lot of athletes that are using PEDs. I think there are. I think they're way more than I want. At the same time, if we just give up and move the line farther, it does not help. It will hurt. It will hurt. Because wherever you move the line, people are going to go farther than that. And I have not seen anything from the enhanced games that establishes how they're going to um how they're gonna manage that in any shape or form. Um how are they gonna overcome you know the same issues that the Olympics has, which is, you know, like, hey, our testing can't keep up. Well, now you've opened Pandora's box, you've got all this extra stuff, it's gonna be even harder for you to keep up, right? And um, so you can throw all the doctors that you want, right, at it. All the all the blood panels, all the you know, cardiac imaging, as I'm reading in this blog post, all the oversight, but what is going to stop people from pushing it further? Um, and I I don't think that they've answered that question at all. And they've just launched this. Here we go. People are right now uh going whole hog into it. Um all right, that's all I have to say on this topic for the moment. It's a short one, just wanted to respond to a few pieces of it. Um love the people who are listening, reaching out to me. You can always do so. Swimbriefpodcast at gmail.com. Absolutely nobody uses that email address. So maybe I'll ditch it soon. Instagram, Christy underscore coach. That seems to be the main place people are contacting me. Then you can go to my website, Christycoach.com. You fill out a contact form, be back again in a few days with a new podcast. Can't wait to share that with you guys, and I'll see you soon.