Unleashing the Dark Side of Athletics: Enter the Scandalous Drug Olympics for Cheaters!

Drugs in sport

Entrepreneur Aron D’Souza has plan to host ‘science-enhanced superheroes’ at event encouraging doping

Fri, Jun 30, 2023 at 3:00 am EDT

By now, you may be familiar with Aron D’Souza — an Oxford-educated lawyer, entrepreneur, self-publicist, the kind of persona LinkedIn was made up for — and his quest to become the Victor Frankenstein of the sports world. In announcing publicly his ambitious plans for Enhanced Games – essentially, a drug Olympiad, where doping is encouraged and anything goes – last week, D’Souza insisted that his motives have little to do with personal financial gain.

“I’ve had a very successful career as a venture capitalist, as a tech entrepreneur,” said the man whose newly created online bio features his inclusion in Australian Men’s Style magazine’s 2014 “Men of Influence” list. I just wanted to make money, I’d keep doing it.”

Instead, it suggests that his motivation is more rooted. This personal crusade to challenge the hegemony of the International Olympic Committee is something he says he has felt since the age of seven, when he began to realize the “always broken system” that governs the world’s biggest sporting event. In that belief alone, he could find broad support.

D’Souza has been ubiquitous in recent days, courted by media around the globe as he aims to generate traction for an ambitious and hugely controversial project he plans to fund “like a traditional Silicon Valley start-up.” So far he has provided all the money himself; then comes the hunt for the millions he hopes can turn his dream (and others’ nightmare) into reality.

It doesn’t require a huge dose of skepticism to wonder whether such a grotesque and dangerous idea will ever get off the ground, given how risky any association with an overtly positive drug organization would be for potential advocates or athletes. How has D’Souza already managed to convince three Olympians to risk their reputations by joining his advisory board for athletes?

A nearly ten-year-old “man of influence” clearly has his ways, though he may find it difficult to argue against the cohort’s darkness: South Africa’s Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Roland Schoeman, fellow swimmer Brett Fraser , who made the Olympic semifinals three times for the Cayman Islands and Canadian bobsleigh athlete Christina Smith.

Schoeman has served a ban for doping (which she insists, and hasn’t been able to prove, was the result of tainted product), but the threat of being tarnished by the association is strong. Joining the Enhanced Games sharks in their tank insisting you’re not a great white is a tricky balancing act. Legacies that have taken careers to build can be destroyed in an instant.

“This is a calculated concern that I thought about before I got involved,” said Fraser, whose lofty title as head of athletes allowed him to speak to the Guardian without D’Souza present. “The blood passport was established in 2008 with the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency). I can test today and prove without a doubt that I was a clean athlete then when I was performing and currently today.

“I don’t care what other people think about my past. Everyone I’ve trained with and all the coaches know I was a born athlete.”

There is a particular lexicon promoted by Enhanced Games. For “clean,” see “natural.” For “cheat”, see “boosted”. And for someone who supports the cause but wouldn’t want to actively participate, see “ally”.

Asked if he would take advantage of the free-for-all drug promoted by the advanced games, Smith – with D’Souza in attendance – said he would avoid illegal performance-enhancing substances, as he says he has done during his bobsledding career. “I would be an ally,” he said. “I would be happy to be in an organization that doesn’t exploit their athletes.”

Of any reputational damage his new association may bring, he said: “I have no hesitation or insecurities knowing what I did, how I performed and my results were as pure as my human abilities. There’s definitely a side to which people can make assumptions, and it’s inevitable.

As for Schoeman, the biggest name involved, who has returned from his drug ban and will compete at next month’s World Championships at the age of 43, the Guardian was told he was only available to answer questions via e- mail via D’Souza’s assistant. But the South African did not respond.

Explaining his vision, D’Souza – who doesn’t drink alcohol or coffee and says “my body is my temple” – proposes that his contest will feature “science-enhanced superheroes”. Using language that has become common during the Covid pandemic, he suggests drugs should be a personal decision: “My body, my choice. Your body, your choice. Adult individuals, with free and informed consent, should be able to do with their bodies as they wish”.

Speaking eloquently about how his organization would strongly promote a drug regimen backed by science and medicine, D’Souza said it would make doping safer. And of those who would inevitably push far beyond the bounds of responsibility, he asks: “Should you decide for yourself what risks you are willing to take or should the government or the sports federation decide?”

It is this argument that Fraser and Smith seem to subscribe to. “I’m all for bodily autonomy,” Fraser said. “There’s a revolution that needs to happen and I think it’s happening now.”

For D’Souza, that rhetoric seemingly knows no bounds. “I’m a gay man and so much about building this movement makes me think about the history and acceptance of LGBT people in the wider community,” she said.

“Think back 50 years ago, being a gay man was like being better today. It’s stigmatized, it’s marginalized, it’s illegal in a way. What has changed? Well, pride happened. A movement of people, a revolution of people who have mobilized around an idea of ​​acceptance.

Schoeman, Fraser, and Smith are willing to risk their names for another, hoping that the cheaters (and their “allies”) can flourish.