Alarm screeches. Hit snooze button to optimise sleep recovery. Yawn to improve airflow. Chemically adjust mood with double shot of caffeine. Brush teeth with whitening toothpaste. Apply deodorant to improve social acceptability.
Smear moisturiser on bald head in overly optimistic attempt to slow visible signs of decay. Shave unsightly white whiskers. Gulp water to maintain hydration levels. Don "slim fit" T-shirt in vain bid to display upper body anatomy in admirable proportions.
Feel rather ... enhanced. Improved. Ready to confront a judgmental world. Then turn on the news. Sneering commentators in heavy make-up and carefully-styled hair are rolling their eyes.
The object of their contempt? The Enhanced Games, the first competition permitting athletes to use performance enhancing drugs. Appropriately staged in Las Vegas, that global headquarters for artificiality.
Nod agreeably with the commentators. Vulgar? Absolutely. Crass? No arguments here. But then a commentator mocks the event as "morally bankrupt". A clarifying thought crosses my sharply caffeinated mind. Hang on there. That's going too far, isn't it? People in glass houses really shouldn't ...
Where, precisely, do we draw the moral line when enhancement of the human form is no longer a fringe activity confined to East German laboratories and shady locker rooms? Upgrading our bodies, after all, has become one of the key principles driving modern life.
Lips are inflated, stomachs flattened, skin tightened and breasts enlarged. Foreheads are injected, temporarily immobilising the passage of time and, unfortunately, facial expressions. Tech billionaires microdose on psychedelics to improve creativity. Protein powders fill supermarket aisles. Influencers post selfies using filters powerful enough to make garden rakes resemble supermodels.
The natural world has become an out of control pharmaceutical experiment. Last weekend's Enhanced Games may have been a shallow marketing exercise organised by billionaires hoping to sell more supplements. But didn't that charming fiction about sports being the last bastion of the unadulterated body vanish long ago?
Elite athletes owe much of their supremacy to altitude chambers, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, customised nutrition plans, biochemical analysis and support teams of scientists and physiotherapists employing cutting-edge technology to measure every millimetre and microsecond.
The Enhanced Games - rightly regarded as an anticlimactic dud after only one world record was broken - simply removed the hypocrisy that has surrounded high-level sport for decades.
Sure, there was something unsettling about watching heavily-enhanced athletes parading their manufactured physiques at poolside and trackside in Las Vegas. It felt like having a ringside seat at a professional wrestling contest instead of watching an elite athletic competition aspiring to Olympic Games status.
Retired Australian swimmer James Magnussen, an eight-times gold medallist and former 100m freestyle world champion, was an enthusiastic participant in the Games, using banned substances like testosterone and peptides as part of his preparation. He ended up finishing last in both of his events.
But his 35-year-old physique brought to mind Clive James' legendary description of Arnold Schwarzenegger's muscle-bound body: it resembled nothing more than a condom filled with walnuts.
Feeling unease about athletes engaged in an unnatural pharmaceutical arms race is natural. It's also natural to be concerned, as many traditional sporting bodies have pointed out, that the Enhanced Games and the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in its success might inspire young athletes to pursue chemical enhancement as another career step.
But to describe it as morally bankrupt? Please. Sport and wider society abandoned the notion of purity long ago.
Consider our world at the moment. Vulgar than the crassest of reality TV shows. Crudeness is the currency of social media. The global economy is being upended by a self-aggrandising, cash-worshipping US president who spends more time lying on a tanning bed than sitting behind his desk. His royal court consists of sycophantic billionaires who, mysteriously, can still bend the knee despite the absence of a spine.
The Enhanced Games were vulgar and tasteless. But let's not call them morally bankrupt. At least the organisers and competitors, despite their professed love of things artificial, were honest.
The irony is that in an over-optimised and highly augmented world, the unnatural athletes of the Enhanced Games simply turned out to be ordinary.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Have you undergone surgery or taken medication to enhance or improve your body? Should athletes be allowed to use performance enhancing drugs? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
THEY SAID IT: "The testosterone is the superpower. That's what gets you bounding out of bed in the morning, lifting massive weights and feeling your best." - James Magnussen, Australian swimmer
YOU SAID IT: John wrote about finding Zen riding his beloved Indian motorcycle, even if it feels like everyone and everything is out to kill him.
"Oh, how jealous I am of you, dear Echidna," writes Daniel. "Only the other day at my local shopping centre, I ogled longingly at a bloke who looked as age-weathered as me donning his helmet before he mounted his magnificent iron beast. And then marvelled at the sound of its growl as the rider offered me a warm salute, noticing the smile and look of satisfaction on my face as he rode off. Unfortunately that avenue of pleasure passed me by with overprotective parents never allowing it. I now own a retirement toy that I too get out on warm sunny days. But it's an old convertible with four wheels safely planted on the road. My now passed father would be pleased."
"Love that you covered motorbikers (especially the growing number of women)," writes Jane. "My dad took up motorbikes relatively late in life and my early childhood included touring mainland Europe as his pillion passenger. So it's all his fault. Fast forward two decades and immediately upon arriving in Australia, I got my bike licence.. My husband and I have matching Harley Davidson Fat Boys and KTM Enduro 690s. Two very different rides and exhilarating for different reasons. Riding is our Zen ... our escape and our joint passion. And yes - we ride as if everyone/thing is out to get us. PS. My daughter has just got her licence ... all my fault!"
Jim from Tuggeranong writes: "I'm now 83 and continue to ride after 59 years and 680,000km. Why? Reasons include: exhilaration/stimulation, fresh air, mental acuity/alertness, 'me time', maintenance of balance, coordination, and arm and leg strength. Also the huge bonus of parking ease, and minimal fuel use. Keep on riding!"
"I have owned five motorcycles over the years," writes Paul. "The first, a 50cc Honda cub, more a scooter than a bike, but as an impoverished student, the 180 mpg was welcome. In my retirement, I graduated to a 900cc sports tourer with all the fruit, including cruise control, heated grips, etc. There's nothing better than riding a decent bike; it's so much more visceral than a car. Riding up a mountain with lots of twisties is exhilarating. But, yes, it all comes with more inherent danger. A doctor friend labelled us temporary citizens. If you're careful and not stupid, you're OK. But you have to assume that motorists simply do not see you and then ride accordingly."
Bob writes: "Many years ago I briefly rode a motorcycle. Once I had to shelter behind it as needles of rain hammered me. A nurse once asked me if I was a footballer or bike rider (I was football). 'The only healthy blokes who come in here are footballers and bikies.' When I stepped off it, the target fell off my back. Never missed it."
"I've been riding since I was 17 (I'm now 78)," writes Wally. "I've had all from trailbikes to a 1100cc cruiser and in my latter years discovered scooters - not the electric road hazard ones but real twist and go fun! Sadly just sold my beloved 500cc scooter . I'll miss those two-wheel days."
Sue remembers the fun riding the "family" bike on her grandmother's farm. "An Indian of mid 1930s vintage. It was one of the vehicles on granny's farm, so fair game for all the grand- and great grandkids, and we took full opportunity. My mother, who was born before World War I, is reputed to have beaten all the local lads on a cross country motorcycle race on the Indian. I remember six of us on it at one stage, as well as many trips up and down creek beds, culverts and slaloming around granite boulders. These days it is taken out, polished and taken on regular, but relatively sedate day trips or shown off on special occasions."
"Come to the Philippines," writes Dusty, "where motorcycles outnumber cars. There are only two road rules: don't hit someone and don't get hit. Otherwise, the road is yours to do want you want."
Raelene writes: "Getting my motorbike licence and buying a Piaggio Fly 150cc scooter in 2011 were close to being the best decisions I made in life. Difficulties in finding a car park for an afternoon shift became non-existent and the eventual cost of parking brought in by the National Capital Authority here in Canberra didn't affect me. A co-worker warned me that it would seem that car drivers were out to get me and to ride accordingly. I found out it really was true! But there is something so satisfying about riding towards Parliament House on a beautiful morning that nothing can beat as a start to a work day. I'm retired now but won't give up scooter just yet."
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