Ben Proud’s home room in Dubai has two books on opposite sides. Together, The Buddha Teachings and Principles, a corporate manifesto, hover as mute observers as an athletic outcast talks about his chosen course.
Despite his best efforts to avoid it, Proud is suddenly aware of what people are saying about him. Additionally, he is aware that there is no turning back now that he has profited from the Enhanced Games and its realization of a long-standing theory: how quickly might these guys go if…
We are discussing his choice to become into that person. As a double world swimming champion and Olympic silver medallist for Team GB, he hated the type.
So, as we go deep into the second hour of this interview, Proud is imagining how he will feel in the very near future, assuming he goes through with his intention to infuse himself with performance-enhancing drugs. He pauses for a long time before expressing the idea.
He informs me, “It’s going to be like stepping through a veil and you can no longer step back.””I’ve been drug-free my entire life” will no longer be an option for me. Yes, that will be a challenging evening. Many discussions with me
Another hush descends upon Proud. There have been a few of those in the past four months, since he crossed over, and there will be more before May, when he is due in Las Vegas for a 50m freestyle race against three other pariahs.
Former Great Britain swimmer Ben Proud at his home in Dubai. In May, Proud will participate in the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas.
Celebrating his silver medal in the 50-meter freestyle at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, he was proud to be a member of Team GB.
He will receive $250,000 if he wins in Vegas. In addition to a six-figure signing fee and a $1 million prize for breaking the world record, finishing last would earn him $50,000, which is five times what he won for any one of his three world victories. Even the worst-case outcome, in his words, represents a “financial metamorphosis” in his life. That’s why he did it.
However, it’s doping. Proud detested dopers as well. Tom Dean and Duncan Scott, his closest swimming mates, have won five gold medals between them. And now he’s going to turn into a version of what they all detested: a man who will talk about testosterone as a preferred chemical in this debate while also discussing health hazards and the hurt of hearing from a swimmer’s mother that he let her kid down.
It’s challenging. In fact, there aren’t enough pages in those books to discover a zen condition resulting from a business decision of this nature. But he wants to explain why he has no regrets, even if others don’t get it.
Proud is a thirty-one-year-old clever man. articulate, kind, and courteous. He describes himself as “a bit of a sensitive soul.” Since it was announced in September that he was the first British athlete to join the Enhanced Games, that sensitivity has been tested. The traditional sporting world has mostly ostracised him.
‘I’ve tried to shield myself from the reaction,’ he says. ‘There are people writing on message boards or wherever to say, “Drugs cheat, cheated his whole life etc”, which I never did, and there are some who are probably curious to see what happens. I heard Matt Damon and Ben Affleck talking about it the other day.
‘The harder parts have been the conversations with people I am close to. Not so much family. But some of those conversations with people in swimming who I care about have been difficult.’
Proud’s mind goes back to last autumn, before his decision became public. By then, he had spent a couple of years deliberating over a concept that had first been unveiled to great outrage in June 2023. My reporting included.
But Proud was intrigued from the start – he admits to me that the first overtures came from his side, intrigued to know what might be on offer for an athlete with little cash saved after 10 years in elite sport. In August of 2025, days after winning silver at the world championships in Singapore, he signed. That’s when he started ringing around his closest colleagues in swimming.
Proud was intrigued from the start – he admits that the first overtures came from his side, intrigued to know what might be on offer for an athlete with little cash saved after 10 years in elite sport
‘I’ve not had anyone shout, “Shame on you” to my face, but I was scared about telling the guys on the British swimming team,’ says Proud
‘I’ve not had anyone shout, “Shame on you” to my face, but I was scared about telling the guys on the British swimming team,’ Proud says. ‘To be honest, the ones I value most have been supportive. I think my biggest fear was telling Duncan Scott and Tom Dean, who were always really good friends.’
It was Scott who staged a laudable podium protest at the world championships in 2019, by refusing to stand next to China’s Sun Yang, who had previously served a doping ban. ‘Telling Duncan and Tom, it was like, “This is what’s happening, I don’t think I can turn it down”. They’ve been supportive, not of Enhanced, but of what it means in my life, I think.’
I ask if the three of them still talk regularly and there’s another hesitation. Proud says, “Not so much since I signed.” ‘Obviously I am not seeing them at the pool and I don’t think we can really be seen hanging out together any more. It is going to have an effect on the relationship but we vowed to stay friends.
‘The hardest person to tell was actually James Gibson (a British world champion-turned-coach), who was basically my mentor for about seven years. The fact that he wasn’t furious exacerbates the situation as you know you’ve deeply offended someone. I’m hoping that eventually people will be able to comprehend my logic.
It’s an ambitious hope. But that becomes a conversation about finance, which in turn is an examination of the wider Olympic system.
There are misconceptions about the value of a medal and Proud has plenty of them – between 2014 and 2024, he won two golds in world championships, six European titles, and five at the Commonwealth Games. Then there was the Paris Olympics, in 2024, where he won silver.
‘I’m not going to paint myself as a victim because I wasn’t,’ he says. ‘But people have an idea of an Olympic medallist leading a certain life that isn’t accurate.
‘I got huge pride from that Olympic medal but there was no financial avenue, other than securing your UK Sport (lottery) funding for another 12 months. That is around £28,000 a year, and it’s a great help, but in my 10 years it never increased with inflation.
Team GB’s Duncan Scott stages a laudable podium protest at the world championships in 2019, refusing to stand next to China’s Sun Yang, who had previously served a doping ban
‘Prize money in swimming isn’t what it is in some sports,’ says Proud. ‘The performance lifestyle is very, very hard and the reality is you have to earn a living’
With that money, life was fantastic when I was 20 or 21. But prize money in swimming isn’t what it is in some sports. There is something amazing about chasing a dream, but that performance lifestyle is very, very hard and the reality is you have to earn a living. You still want to have something when you stop.
‘My average (annual) earnings across my career were about £50,000. One year I got to around £100,000, so I probably had more than a lot of athletes, but there are big deductions. I was always outside the main British system, training my own way, so I was often paying for my camps, physio, nutrition, travel.
‘I’d be lucky if I could invest into my ISA account for one or two years of my career. Many years would be the opposite. I remember going into the Tokyo Olympics (in 2021) and I was several thousand pounds in debt.
‘After 10 years, it comes to the point when you need more. I want to be able to support my mum later into her life, and eventually if there’s kids or marriage, I’d like to provide a good life, and how do you do that?’
The Enhanced Games has zeroed in on that dilemma. Even if we loathe their vehicle, most would not dispute the inequity within the status quo – the International Olympic Committee generated a reported surplus of around £910m in 2024 and its star performers got the thinnest end of the wedge. Proud’s disillusionment is at least understandable.
His account includes the statement, “If that had been handled correctly, this would not have happened.”
However, when we extend the reasoning, it becomes vulnerable. Because can the flaws of one system ever justify an athlete joining an organisation that incentivises the use of banned substances?
The Enhanced Games idea should, at most, be seen as a controlled experiment carried out well beyond our conceptions of sport. At worst, it might normalize and promote pharmaceuticals that are harmful when used improperly, giving those debating a conventional advantage an advantage.
Around 20 athletes of a targeted 50 have signed up for the Enhanced Games so far, including the British sprinter Reece Prescod, pictured here (centre back) after winning 4x100m relay bronze at the World Championships in 2022
Prescod claims he won’t take any performance enhancing drugs during the Games
For his part, Proud is comfortable. ‘I don’t regret my decision,’ he says. ‘If you put me on stage in front of a bunch of swimmers’ mums, then I’ll probably feel embarrassed or ashamed. The hard bit was a mum saying to me on Instagram, “My son admired you”.
‘As a gut feeling, that sucks. But this will multiply by five the money I have. It allows me to make decisions in my life that I would not have otherwise. If you go outside and there’s a winning lottery ticket on the floor, would you pick it up? To me it was a no-brainer to take it.’
Proud adds: ‘I want to do what is right for me and then go back into my small bubble with my girlfriend, my family, my friends, my coffee. My only regret is if I’ve hurt people, but I’ve had to be selfish and shield from what is said outside.’
As it happens, this is one of those days when words are being spoken out there – when I leave the interview, a notification arrives from UK Sport to say Proud has brought swimming into disrepute and is no longer eligible for financial assistance. Long after the horse has run off, they are shutting the stable door.
Now that Proud has experienced the why, we can move on to the how and what.
Around 20 athletes of a targeted 50 have signed up for the Enhanced Games so far, including the British sprinter Reece Prescod, and each has been presented a choice: use drugs that are banned in sport but approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, or take none at all.
Prescod, for one, claims that he won’t, and the decision for all of them will be finalised imminently after screening in Abu Dhabi. ‘It will be extensive,’ says Proud. ‘It will be a three-day check on your health, your fertility, organs and areas where you might respond best.’
Proud’s decision to dope has not been formalised, but he is leaning that way. ‘If I end up taking something, the reason will be ultimately to get the best out of this contract,’ he says. ‘I’m never going to compete in the Olympics or the worlds again, and that leaves you with a question, “Well, why wouldn’t I take what’s available?”’
Proud says there are seven doctors he has liaised with on the aspect of taking drugs and feels ‘very safe’, but it is still a leap of faith
Brazil’s Cesar Cielo has held the world record of 20.91sec for the 50m freestyle for 17 years. Cielo once did not pass a drug test.
There are powerful answers to Proud’s question and they point to history – the past is littered with athletes who suffered awful consequences from using banned drugs.
Predictably, the Enhanced Games have talked up the supervision of their core element. Proud says there are seven doctors he has liaised with on this aspect and feels ‘very safe’, but it is still a leap of faith. It is still the variable that he says caused his brother a few ‘sleepless nights’.
This is the type of on-record conversation that is rarely, if ever, had with an active athlete.
‘Testosterone, from what I’ve read, has the most green flags in terms of power output, lean muscle mass,’ Proud says.
What about growth hormone in humans? I don’t need the additional enlargement that that provides. My field has a different health risk factor and is more skill-based, so I’m not interested in it.
And EPO, the preferred option for distance runners? For training capacity, that is an intriguing one. The benefits around recovery will be large.’
It is a surreal conversation. It is for Proud, too. Earlier, he had told me: ‘For 15 years of my life, I was completely anti-drugs. I hated the thought of cheats. And now I’m considering taking these substances. Since it’s within the rules, it’s not cheating, but it’s a completely different way of thinking.
Even factoring for the problems of the traditional Olympics, where the notion of clean sport is routinely exposed as a fantasy, the Enhanced Games is a scenario without precedent. It remains to be seen what will come of their gathering in Vegas, a backdrop that feels strangely appropriate.
‘Testosterone, from what I’ve read, has the most green flags in terms of power output, lean muscle mass,’ Proud says
And EPO, the preferred option for distance runners? ‘That is an interesting one for training capacity,’ Proud says. ‘The benefits around recovery will be large’
The Enhanced Games’s backers, including the billionaire Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr, have plainly seen vast investment potential at the intersection of the pharmaceutical industry and provocative content. Cast as data points in a clinical trial, the athletes will effectively serve as billboards for the substances they use and frontier-messaging around living a longer life.
Like Proud, they have been paid well to do so. Like Proud, they have concluded the criticisms are an acceptable loss for the returns.
Will he break the record and get the big prize? It currently stands at 20.91sec and has been held for 17 years by Cesar Cielo of Brazil. That Cielo once failed a drugs test is possibly a reason to caution against excessive sanctimony. Or maybe that is an obscene piece of equivocation. Either way, free will is free will and Proud has exercised his.
With it, he says he would be ‘confident’ of finding $1m on the other side of that veil, if he takes the step. Time will tell if it is worth the cost.
