Cameron McEvoy 'dumbfounded' by 'ludicrous' $1.4m world record pay disparity as Enhanced Games takes another hit
Australian swimming superstar Cameron McEvoy has admitted it's both "ludicrous" and "unfortunate" that while the Enhanced Games recruit who bettered the 50-metre freestyle world record pocketed US$1 million (A$1.4 million), he took home zero in bonus money despite going even faster and doing it clean.
McEvoy produced another meteoric swim in his extraordinary career resurgence when he clocked 20.88 seconds at the China Open last Friday to slice .03 of a second off the world record set by Brazilian César Cielo in 2009.
Cielo registered his 20.91 in the infamous "super-suits" era, in which more than 200 world records were broken across 2008 and 2009.
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Australia's Cameron McEvoy celebrates breaking the 50-metre freestyle world record at the China Open last week. Getty
The avalanche of world record swims prompted the global governing body of swimming to ban the technology.
The Enhanced Games' Kristian Gkolomeev, a Greek swimmer, was wearing a polyurethane suit similar to the outfits worn by swimmers in the super-suits era when he stopped the clock at 20.89 seconds in North Carolina in February last year.
Gkolomeev was also juiced up on performance-enhancing drugs banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and World Aquatics.
McEvoy spoke to media, including Wide World of Sports, in Brisbane on Wednesday on the back of his world record swim.
"It's crazy to think that to get a world record without a suit, and without any performance-enhancing drugs, so as a clean athlete, the bonus is zero dollars, whereas if I went an easier route, [and] I put a suit on which can easily drop half a second, then there's the performance-enhancing drug side of things, which I've no idea what happens there, but I'm sure it's an improvement, you get not only a million dollars USD [in] bonus money ... but there's also $250,000 USD [in] prize money for first place, which you would get on top of the world record," McEvoy said.
"The stark contrast is massive. We're talking on the order of $2 million plus compared to $0, and the $0 pathway is the much harder pathway to do something like this, as well.
"So it's pretty ludicrous, [and] it's a bit unfortunate that this pathway has $0 and the value placed on something like this is something that is at least deemed from that perspective very low, or worth nothing.
"I'm dumbfounded in terms of the stark contrast that exists currently in the landscape of sports."
Enhanced Games recruit Kristian Gkolomeev, who hails from Greece, reacts to bettering Brazilian superstar César Cielo's 50m freestyle world record in February 2025. Enhanced Games
The US$250,000 (A$358,000) incentive noted by McEvoy will apply to the inaugural edition of the Enhanced Games, which will see recruits of the controversial entity compete in swimming, track and field or weightlifting at Resorts World Las Vegas from May 21-24 this year.
Each winner will score $358,000, on top of $1.4 million in the event of a world record being broken, as well as appearance money.
World Aquatics offers world record bonus money at world championships and World Cup meets, but it pales in comparison to what the Enhanced Games dishes up.
At last year's Singapore world championships, $43,000 was handed out for each world record that fell.
On the 2025 World Cup circuit, the world record bonus money up for grabs was only $14,000.
The China Open offers no world record bonus money as it's not run by World Aquatics.
Australian swimming legend Cate Campbell made scathing remarks about the Enhanced Games in an interview with Wide World of Sports this week, saying the concept had "hype but not credibility".
The four-time Olympic gold medallist also described Enhanced Games recruits as "lazy" and as "cheats".
McEvoy was similarly disparaging of the much-maligned start-up.
"This might be biased towards my positioning ... as an athlete in the traditional sporting zone, but it didn't really hold much credibility to begin with, in the sense where the public opinion and the public reception of it wasn't very good," McEvoy said.
"Particularly in the realm of sport, it was definitely looked down upon and not seen as something that really held any weight anyway. It was more kind of like an exhibition swim type of thing, similar to if someone put a giant pair of fins on and did a 50 freestyle in a particular time. It's in that realm.
"I think doing this time probably reinforces that, [and] also shows that they don't have the level of competition that exists in the traditional sporting arena, as well."
As McEvoy chatted to reporters by the Brisbane River on Wednesday, off to the side were his wife, Madeline, and their one-year-old boy Hartley.
Their boy was wearing an adorable t-shirt organised by friends that read: "My daddy's cool ... 20.88."