FILE PHOTO: Swimming - World Aquatics Championships - Men 50m Freestyle - World Aquatics Championships Arena, Singapore - August 1, 2025 Australia's Kyle Chalmers before heat 11 REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
MELBOURNE (Reuters) -Six-times world champion swimmer Kyle Chalmers turned down a "life-changing" sum of money to join the Enhanced Games, the event that allows athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs, his manager said.
Chalmers' manager, Phoebe Rothfield of W Sports & Media, confirmed the 27-year-old had been approached by Enhanced organisers to defect to the breakaway event.
"It is life-changing money for a swimmer – or any Australian Olympic athlete, for that matter," Rothfield said in comments published by the Sydney Morning Herald.
"It could have set him and his young family up and helped with the mortgage, but Kyle said 'no' from the onset. It was a brief discussion.
"What drives him is competing for his country, standing on the podium in the green and gold and doing the sport because he loves it."
Chalmers, the 100m freestyle champion at the 2016 Rio Olympics and runner-up at Tokyo and Paris, is aiming to compete at a fourth Games at Los Angeles 2028.
World Aquatics announced a bylaw in June that will prevent any athlete or official who supports or endorses doping from competing in their events, meaning moving from traditional competition to the Enhanced Games is a one-way street.
British swimmer Ben Proud announced last week he had joined Enhanced, drawing condemnation from the British swimming federation.
Track athlete Fred Kerley, an Olympic 100m silver and bronze medallist, confirmed on Wednesday he had signed up for the event weeks after being given a provisional suspension for whereabouts failures.
The Enhanced Games have set their inaugural competition for May 2026 in Las Vegas, with swimming, athletics and weightlifting on the programme.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
