“The Olympics But With Drugs”: Inside The $1.2b ‘Enhanced Games’

It’s been a running joke for a long time: “If athletes keep cheating in the Olympics, why don’t we just have an Olympics for cheaters?”

It conjures images of sprinters hitting a line just before hitting the 100m or a high jumper getting actually high before jumping high.

Well, now bro’s only gone and made it happen.

Yes, the ‘Enhanced Games’ was a genuine sporting event that took place last week in Las Vegas. The event ran much like the multi-event Olympics, but this time, forbidden doping techniques like steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs were completely fair game.

Athletes were not required to take a drug test, but that didn’t mean everything was allowed. Competitors could not use actually illegal substances; all ‘enhancements’ had to be FDA-approved and taken under medical supervision.

Athletes are also not required to take drugs, and some were competing ‘clean’, without enhancements. 

The promoters say that doping is so rife in regulated sport anyway, the Enhanced Games simply offer a more transparent, fairer alternative.

Detracters however, argue that this promotes potentially dangerous drug use and that this could promote unrealistic standards for athletes.

And the thing is, on that promotion point, the critics seem to be absolutely right because, for all the talk about fairness, ‘Enhanced’ is also selling supplements and steroids on their site. So is this all just a giant advertisement?

Either way, it seems to have been at least initially successful. The company went public just before the first event and earned a valuation of $1.2 billion, attracting massive investments from Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.

It’s a massive windfall for the founder of the games, Australian businessman Aron D’Souza. D’Souza first got his break when Hulk Hogan slept with Bubba The Love Sponge’s wife and supported the lawsuit that ended in the bankruptcy of Gawker Media. (I’m not joking, look it up.)

D’Souza says he got the idea after observing the blatant use of steroids by people at his gym. He explained that athletes “have a right to do with their body what they wish – my body, my choice; your body, your choice, and no government, no paternalistic sports federation, should be making those decisions for athletes – particularly around products that are FDA regulated and approved.”

“If we cut out all the waste, the layers of bureaucracy, the needless building of infrastructure, this event can be delivered for virtually nothing, and we can use all the surplus profits to pay the athletes, to invest in R&D, build better and better technology, and build a bigger and bigger event.”

Well, D’Souza got his wish, and the controversial event seems to have gone by without a hitch, even breaking one world record in swimming.

Of course, that record hasn’t been officially recognised, but maybe in the near future we’ll see every sporting world record come with a little asterix clarifying if it’s ‘clean’ or ‘enhanced’.