Plan for doping-forward Enhanced Games lacks real juice
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It looks like the Enhanced Games could use a shot in the arm.
Aron D’Souza, the Oxford-educated founder of the Games, had two years to get his act together and could do no better than what looks like a four-day trade show for performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) next May inside the Resorts World hotel/casino complex in Las Vegas, the American city built on artifice, avarice and hype.
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Plan for doping-forward Enhanced Games lacks real juice Back to video
The Games program contains three sports — athletics, swimming and weightlifting — and just nine events. They could hold this thing during intermission of a Cirque show.
But, hey, be sure not to miss out on the line of Enhanced Performance Products — including advanced supplements and medically supervised therapies — that will be on offer through a “tele-health experience.”
One year out, the roster of confirmed Games athletes consists of exactly four male swimmers — one each from Australia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Greece. That’s just a wee bit shy on star power, not to mention diversity.
Little wonder why there has been no announcement of a deal with network TV or a major streaming service.
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In 2023, when D’Souza began talking up the Games, his packaged passion for PEDs as the key to human achievement was the lowest-hanging fruit around and major international media outlets wanted a taste.
Today, there isn’t much of anything left on that tree. While D’Souza convinced some of those platforms to publish his predictions of a “sporting mega-event aspiring to rival the Olympic Games,” it appears likely his little show will be more akin to Battle of the Network Stars or American Gladiators.
While gathering seed funding, D’Souza railed against the excess and wastefulness of the Olympic movement — and goodness knows there are many expensive and abandoned venues to prove the case — and he told Australian Associated Press the Enhanced Games would be economically sustainable.
“By reducing it from 13,000 (Olympic) athletes to maybe a couple of thousand — no specialist infrastructure — instead of costing $100 billion to deliver this, it will cost double-digit millions.”
D’Souza now says there will be 200 athletes. So, just a wee bit less than “a couple of thousand.” And to get from four to 200, one assumes they will recruit the rest through the website’s sign-up page, so imagine how thrilling it will be to watch juiced-up weekend warriors from Iowa and Illinois competing in the testosterone triathlon. If that’s what citius, altius, fortius looks like now, then by all means pity us.
To justify their vision, the Games team put Greek-Bulgarian swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev on an enhancement protocol in hopes of breaking the world record in the 50-metre freestyle. They claim he did exactly that while on PEDs and wearing a body suit that has been banned by World Aquatics. Wow. What an accomplishment.
Disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson’s gold-medal winning 100-metre time of 9.79 seconds at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 was just as amazing. Turns out he was pumped full of Stanozolol.
The Enhanced Games are going where Johnson and so many others have gone before. This is not ground-breaking work on human performance, it is the expected and proven result of chemical intervention. The Enhanced Games are not the future, they are an echo of dirty races past.
D’Souza said Gkolomeev was rewarded with a US$1-million prize for breaking the record, which will not be recognized by World Aquatics.
In fact, it was announced on Tuesday that Enhanced Games participants will be barred from all future competitions sanctioned by World Aquatics.
With that in mind, it is hard to imagine even one relevant and ostensibly clean Olympian crossing to the dark side now — and let’s agree that 34-year-old Australian swimmer James Magnussen, an Olympic medalist who came out of retirement to join this PED parade, is no longer relevant.
How are the Games being financed?
There is no public money involved. The Games have been backed in part by PayPal founder Peter Thiel and by a company that was co-founded by Donald Trump Jr.
Which events will be held?
Competitors in the 100-metre sprint and both sprint hurdle races (100m for women and 110m for men) will run on a purpose-built six-lane track; swimmers will contest the 50-metre and 100-metre freestyle and butterfly in a 50-metre pool, and weightlifters will compete in the clean and jerk and the snatch on a “bespoke” stage.
Is there prize money?
The Games website promises “an appearance fee and rank-based prize money.” In addition, anyone breaking the world record in the 50-metre freestyle swim and 100-metre sprint will be paid $1 million, while the first athletes to break world records in the other seven events will apparently be paid $250,000.
Will all competitors be doped?
Athletes will apparently have a choice to make: Compete clean, while on a personally chosen protocol of legally obtained and Games-approved PEDs, or as a participant in a medically supervised clinical trial, something the Games calls the Performance Enhancement Protocol. The trial substances have not been disclosed. There will be no anti-doping tests conducted.
What are national and international sport leaders saying about the Games?
The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport: “The Enhanced Games run contrary to sport at its best by encouraging athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs and exploiting them for entertainment, rather than ensuring athletes’ health and wellness, and upholding the principles of clean sport that are at the heart of sport with integrity.
“An event that not only permits but facilitates the use of drugs that are prohibited and experimental, and that may have long-term effects on both their mental and physical well-being, is dangerous and reckless, not cutting edge.”
The World Anti-Doping Agency: “Over the years, there have been many examples of athletes suffering serious long-term side-effects from their use of prohibited substances and methods. Some have died.
“This is one area that should unite all anti-doping organizations and governments around the world, not least in the U.S. where the event is now scheduled to take place. We invite all our clean sport partners, including athletes, to join us in condemning this event regardless of its wealthy and influential supporters.
“It has become clear from the event’s launch in Las Vegas that a focus of the organizers is to sell their products and to play down the associated risks. Inducing elite athletes to use their profiles to promote the use of prohibited and potentially dangerous substances is harmful, in particular for young athletes.”
Swimming Canada High Performance Director John Atkinson: “In no way do we endorse involvement in the Enhanced Games for any Canadian athlete, coach, support staff, science & medicine staff, or anyone else affiliated with Swimming Canada and/or our national teams. Any affiliation with the Enhanced Games could have long-term consequences to your health and to future sport involvement, including potential anti-doping violations.”
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