“If Lance Armstrong, after beating cancer and winning the Tour de France, had come out and said publicly that he came back from the brink of death because of EPO, EPO would have been the hottest-selling product of the early 2000s,” Aron D’Souza told me , this sentence perfectly reflects his anti-traditional point of view, “If EPO can be used safely and clinically approved by the FDA, then every middle-aged person will use it. [the USA’s food and drug administration] regulations,” he added. That’s exactly how to start the interview – and there’s more optimism to come. “It’s a classic misconception that performance-enhancing drugs are unsafe. It’s hysterical,” he said. In case you didn’t guess, D’Souza is a man dedicated to changing the sport. Or, as he puts it, “on a mission to build a new superman” — the Enhanced Games, It’s an annual Olympic-style event where athletes are encouraged to take performance-enhancing drugs.
Enhanced gaming
Disruptor or Destroyer? D’Souza is divided
(Image credit: Aron D’Souza)
D’Souza, an Australian lawyer and businessman who founded technology company Sargon, turned to sports for his next profitable venture. Not everyone welcomed his idea of ”enhancement”, with two-time Olympic swimming gold medalist Kieron Perkins branding D’Souza a “borderline criminal”. But the Australian, backed by billionaire investors such as Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, has promised better compensation for athletes and believes the global sports scene would not only benefit from, but need, an augmented Olympics. By participating in the Olympics, he is challenging traditional interpretations of fair play in sport. “I think of myself as Uber and Netflix, they [sport’s governing bodies] It’s taxis and Blockbuster,” he said. “It [the Olympics] This is an oppressive and exploitative system, and we are creating a better one. “
Let’s start with a basic question: Is enhanced gaming (“doped gaming” as many coin it) what the world really wants or needs right now? “The reality is that there are so many sports in the Olympics that it’s hard to really understand what’s going on,” D’Souza, 39, told me via video call from his office in London. “A lot of journalists say: ‘Oh, you’re just making the Olympics and drugs,’ but that’s not right. We’re reinventing sports from the ground up.”
D’Souza plans to host the inaugural event in a yet-to-be-decided host city in 2025, before eventually formulating a series of around six rounds per year and a grand final. The first year will include just five sports – track and field, swimming, gymnastics, combat and weightlifting – and the third year will include more sports, including cycling. In D’Souza’s view, despite record global viewership for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Games are incompatible with modern media consumption and athletes are underpaid. “The Olympics generate $4.5 billion in media revenue [and ticket sales] And none of this benefits the athletes,” he said.
The International Olympic Committee claims to return 90% of revenue to sports, but in fact only a small part is returned directly to athletes. “I sincerely believe athletes are the core value creators of sport and they should benefit from the revenue they generate. The good ones should be rewarded.”
evidence-based approach
Few would disagree with D’Souza on the issue of revenue sharing, but which sponsors want to be associated with the event, in the words of Australian swimmer James Magnussen, who has signed up to take part in the proposed Olympics, “juice to the gills” for competing athletes? “We’re opening up a whole new dimension to the sport that doesn’t exist yet,” D’Souza said. “The human augmentation market is one of the largest industries in the world, and we are the flagship event for marketing these products.” The main problem facing D’Souza is public suspicion and fear. Most sports fans are averse to performance-enhancing drugs.
D’Souza stressed that both alcohol and Class A drugs are considered riskier than anabolic steroids
(Image credit: Chris Capol)
“Let’s talk about safety and science,” D’Souza said, preempting my next question with relish. He shares his screen with me, showing Imperial College London’s review of the social risks of a range of social and performance-enhancing drugs. He highlighted the fact that both alcohol and Class A drugs are considered to pose greater risks than anabolic steroids, but ignored the fact that steroids are still seen as a significant threat. “Through clinical supervision we can reduce the risk [of PEDs] Even further,” he said confidently, without explaining how. “We support PEDs because the clinical evidence is very supportive and has been studied for decades. “
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Come by bike
The only way out is morality
Michael McNamee is Professor of Applied Ethics at Swansea University, specializing in sports ethics.
“Let’s start with the positive: It’s a valid point that traditional sports don’t care about its primary stakeholders – the athletes. That’s a good place to start, and an attractive one. But I wonder about Allen What is the concept of exercise [D’Souza] Yes: Is it about athletic excellence or is it about spectacle? What he’s promoting is actually a 21st century circus with big monsters in tracksuits, because that’s what it’s like.
“If you’re going to say you’re athlete-centric, you have to be cognizant of the health of the athletes as well. It looks like the enhanced game is going to be a liberal game and people can take whatever risks they want to take. The excitement is medically supervised. What does the drug actually look like? The assumption is that professional doctors will help athletes reach the limits of what’s possible while staying healthy, but that’s an extremely naive view. Which doctors do that and who pays for it? Is there quality assurance in terms of production and safety?
“If it’s a free-for-all, death will follow; if it’s a free-for-all, death will follow. They need a regulatory framework. So it’s not going to be enhanced compared to a clean game, it’s about us The debate about where to draw the line – some may go beyond that – is that we’re embracing a whole new idea of how to organize sports differently.”
Is the contest he proposes a free-for-all contest? “We support performance-enhancing drugs but not those that are unsafe or contrary to the spirit of sport,” he responded. What are unsafe drugs? “Class A drugs – the government bans them for a reason. You can’t take cocaine before competing in the Enhanced Games.” According to the Enhanced Games website, all competitors will undergo “extensive medical analysis” before competing – including Gene sequencing – to ensure they are “safe to compete”. This raises further ethical dilemmas.
Assuming these issues are resolved, in a world where athletes are free to take a mixture of EPO, testosterone, and human growth hormone, which forms of enhancement would be considered unsafe? “We don’t want athletes chopping off limbs and putting on carbon fiber legs,” he deadpanned.
D’Souza, who was born in Melbourne, Australia and has been a lifelong cyclist, told me, “I started riding seriously when I was at university in Australia.” While he was studying law at Oxford University, rugby became his sport, and from there he He has competed in triathlons since then. I asked why cycling was not included in the planned first year Power Games? “Why did we choose these five sports? Because they are easy to deliver and don’t require expensive infrastructure,” he said. “The reality is that cycling is a very expensive sport… and it doesn’t have the same return on investment as other sports categories. Track cycling is a wonderful sport, but there are only a few thousand people in the world who play it. It’s Quite niche…and very expensive, which is something we try to avoid.”
All major cycling disciplines – time trial, road and track – are planned to be included in the program in the coming years. Has he been contacted by any cyclists? “Yes, there were a few cyclists.” WHO? “Current professional cyclists.” He wouldn’t reveal his identity, but I was curious what these riders asked him. “They said: ‘Please include cycling.’ I told them it doesn’t make sense from an economic perspective right now.”
So, if the enhancement movement is as successful as he believes it will be, will he consider starting the competition? “In terms of Tour de France-style multi-day road races, there are more serious risks.”
Doubts about Shanda Travel
D’Souza says multi-day stage races are out of the question
(Image source: Getty Images)
Wait, he just told me that PEDs are safe, but now he doubts their safety for multi-day endurance exercise. Isn’t this a contradiction? “No, no, it’s a different risk,” he retorted. “Nothing is 100% safe – crossing the street, driving… the risks of PEDs are significantly lower than other generally accepted risks.” This is politician-style evasion of the question. What are the specific risks of taking PEDs during stage races? “One is that it carries different types of risks.” Like what? He hesitated. “Well, multi-day cycling pushes the human body to higher limits, and using PEDs in that context is not something I’ve looked at carefully.” So far, D’Souza seems well prepared, and mastered his argument, but now he’s stuck. If the PED diet was really as safe as he claims, he certainly wouldn’t be worried about hosting intensive cycling stage races.
Safety concerns aside, why would cyclists be interested in his project? “Because performance improvements are at the root of modern cycling,” he said, painting the entire sport of professional cycling with a brush, “we are revealing what is possible in humans. Enhanced athletes can only be better and more capable than natural athletes. Faster, career-longer, more fun.” Ethics aside, logistics and hosting may be the biggest hurdles for D’Souza. If he wants to host the first Enhanced Games next year, he needs to keep going. “Building the future is difficult but we are in talks with the host cities,” he insisted.
