Australian entrepreneur hosting no-drug-test Olympic games next year
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The inaugural games are intended to take place in December next year, with two high-profile Australian athletes among those expressing interest.
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A man jogs past the Olympic rings Monday, March 30, 2020, in Tokyo. The Tokyo Olympics will open next year in the same time slot scheduled for this year's games. Tokyo organizers said Monday the opening ceremony will take place on July 23, 2021. (AP)
Australian-born, London-based businessman Aron D’Souza is hosting his invention, the Enhanced Games, which is a coalition of athletes, doctors, and scientists of an Olympic-styled competition for drug-taking athletes.
The inaugural games are intended to take place in December next year, with two high-profile Australian athletes among those expressing interest.
D'Souza calls the Olympic Games model "broken".
“The IOC (International Olympic Committee) has effectively been a one-party state running the world of sport for 100 years,” D’Souza told AAP, adding, “And now the opposition party is here. We are ready for a fight. I know they are going to play dirty. I know they are going to threaten us. But ultimately we know that we are morally correct.”
The games will host five sports categories: track and field, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics, and combat sports. The games are intended to be held annually.
Performance drugs are 'the fountain of youth'
Australia’s Olympic chef de mission for Paris 2024 and former Olympic gold medallist Anna Meares calls the move "a joke, to be honest. Unfair, unsafe — I just don’t think this is the right way to go about sport."
D’Souza replies by saying, “Athletes are adults ... and they have a right to do with their body what they wish - my body, my choice; your body, your choice," adding, “And no government, no paternalistic sports federation, should be making those decisions for athletes - particularly around products that are FDA regulated and approved.”
D’Souza calls performance medicine "the rod to anti-aging" and "the route to the fountain of youth. Nothing will improve the productivity of our society more than preventing aging. It sounds like science fiction now but we live in the future, look at the rise of artificial intelligence and other technologies."
“And the reason why anti-aging has been so stymied in the scientific community is because hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money around the world is going to fund anti-science authorities - ie WADA, USADA, Sports Integrity Australia - whose job it is to stop scientific progress. The reality is that the IOC and WADA have created an unsafe system which has forced the use of performance enhancements underground.”
Silicon Valley shows interest
The businessman states that a location for the games has not been confirmed yet, but funds as much as an Olympic game won't be necessary, "instead of costing $100 billion to deliver this, it will cost double-digit millions."
He assured that competing athletes would be given stocks in Enhanced Games, which is a for-profit entity attracting interest from investors in California’s Silicon Valley.
“If you participate, you’re going to... be a co-owner and that is really important to us because that is going to be an opportunity for athletes to generate wealth,” he said, assuming that an Olympian's life is "made" upon winning a gold medal.
"It’s sad to see people who have achieved the highest level of human excellence and they’re living an objectively impoverished existence. At the same time you have these sports bureaucrats earning millions.”
The Enhanced Games website claims to have the objective to "end this oppressive cycle. The Enhanced Games hereby reinstates the world records set by the following athletes and commends them for their bravery.”
The website also posts a celebratory list of athletes which includes seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of his medals for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
