What if the Australian behind Enhanced Games is right? What if he really is about to destroy the Olympics and, in the process, wreck a trillion-dollar industry?
Aron D’Souza knows it sounds strange, but the Melbourne-born, London-based president of Enhanced Games means business.
“We have had thousands and thousands of athletes who have shown interest in us, we are in negotiations with many of them,” D’Souza told AAP.
“It’s very simple: we will start signing formal commitments immediately after the Paris Olympic Games.”
More Australians could join swimmer James Magnussen in signing up for the multi-sport competition for anti-doping individuals.
They are not just athletes with improved performance.
They are the showcase for a new generation industry with an age-old premise: the fountain of youth. They could be worth billions of dollars.
Australian Aron D’Souza is behind the Enhanced Games he wants to launch after the Paris Olympics
In Enhanced Games, athletes are free to use performance-enhancing drugs.
Athletes are promised the best medical oversight in the world: if they have a problem, so does a potential trillion-dollar industry.
“We have had thousands and thousands of athletes who have shown interest in us, we are in negotiations with many of them,” D’Souza told AAP.
“It’s very simple: we will start signing formal commitments immediately after the Paris Olympic Games.”
More Australians could join swimmer James Magnussen in signing up for the multi-sport competition for anti-doping individuals.
They are not just athletes with improved performance.
They are the showcase for a new generation industry with an age-old premise: the fountain of youth. They could be worth billions of dollars.
In D’Souza’s vision, Enhanced Games are the vehicle to build a “superhumanity: humans 2.0”; to end a stigma that prevents wider use of medically supervised enhancements in society.
Australian and international Olympians to be targeted at Enhanced Games in France
Some investors compare enhanced games, and by extension the enhancement industry, to AI investing in 2010.
He feels that he is being underestimated.
“It may sound a bit like science fiction,” D’Souza said.
“It may or may not take a long time to develop, but if we do it right, we can say that this is what I believe will be the biggest industry of all time.”
D’Souza tells potential investors about weight-loss drug Ozempic, a potentiating drug that added US$1 billion (A$1.5 billion) to the market capitalisation of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.
“In contrast, all AI startups, including Open AI, are worth US$200 billion (AU$300 billion),” he said.
‘Therefore, one booster drug is equivalent to five times the entire AI.
‘This is not clear to them until I make that analogy: that human enhancement is a very big industry.
‘And what’s the biggest prospect for human enhancement? Enhanced games.’
Australian swimming champion James Magnussen has already announced that he will compete in the first Enhanced Games
Enhanced Games staff will be in Paris soliciting athletes as D’Souza predicts the end of a broken and bankrupt Olympic model.
Olympic hosts face mounting financial costs and squabbles; there is little trust in the world’s anti-doping agency and athletes rarely get any monetary reward for their efforts.
The Olympic motto – faster, higher, stronger – will soon be irrelevant, he said.
“The reality is that the fastest people in the world will not be at the Olympics, they will be at the Enhanced Games,” D’Souza said.
‘Athletes and broadcasters also acknowledge that… who is going to want to compete in the old, slow Olympics?’
D’Souza said critics failed to appreciate the medical and scientific benefits by labelling the Enhanced Games, scheduled for late next year, as a bizarre sporting spectacle.
Specific medical regimens and compensation for athletes will be detailed in an Apple-style release likely later this year.
Magnussen has been keeping himself in top condition and wants to see how fast he can go.
Magnussen will then begin a year-long doping programme with the aim of breaking the 50-metre freestyle world record and collecting a reward of US$1 million (A$1.5 million).
D’Souza is expecting a convincing field of talent, although Magnussen is still the only athlete in the world to have made a public commitment.
The 33-year-old has been keeping fit since retiring in 2019, is a former alpha male of the Australian swim team, a media maven and a four-time Olympic medallist.
He fits the profile perfectly, D’Souza said.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he said.
‘There are some particular individuals with the right combination of ability, charisma and television presence.
We think our approach is more like Formula One than the Olympics.
‘The Olympics are a race where you run or swim, achieve a certain qualifying time and enter.
‘In Formula 1, you have to be a good driver, but you also have to be a good spokesperson, as you represent the Ferrari or McLaren brand.
‘It’s a bit of selection, but it’s also a bit of casting.
‘Especially those who we highlight as our star athletes, who can represent the social movement and the scientific movement that we are building and do it very well.’
D’Souza unveiled Enhanced Games 13 months ago with athletics, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics and combat sports on the agenda.
He envisioned facilities similar to American universities and events broadcast live.
But the brains at Enhanced Games were surprised by the answer.
Forward-thinking investors have already cashed in early.
German-American billionaire businessman, venture capitalist and political activist backs Enhanced Games
Backers include billionaires, libertarian Peter Thiel, who has signed up to be cryogenically preserved when he dies, and venture capitalist and biotech pioneer Christian Angermayer, who runs an enhancement program himself.
A Ridley Scott production company will film the journey of Magnussen and other iconic athletes as global broadcasters haggle over screening rights.
Countries are offering to host the event: they don’t just want the sporting event, but to be known as the home of the home improvement industry.
“Silicon Valley is the software capital of the Internet and artificial intelligence; Taiwan is the semiconductor capital; Los Angeles is the film capital,” D’Souza said.
‘And the country that hosts the Enhanced Games will become the capital of longevity and human enhancement, which I would say will be one of the biggest industries of all time.
‘From an industrial policy level, countries now see the great potential of Enhanced Games as a brand projection on a global scale.’
But not Australia.
“Australia is terrible at creating new technology industries,” he said.
Filmmaker Ridley Scott, pictured left on the set of Napoleon, will document the opening of Enhanced Games.
“The fact that the Australian government is so cosy with WADA, the COA and the IOC will mean that they won’t even be able to consider the opportunities that this multi-billion dollar industry offers and we will lose it.”
However, many Australians were among those who flooded D’Souza’s office with interest.
“I get about 1,000 people a week who approach us and it’s not just athletes, it’s also job seekers, partners and sponsors… a cold email saying I want to be involved in Enhanced Games,” he said.
‘A good third of them are from Australia.
‘The reason I am so confident in our success is not in athlete recruitment or sponsorship or funding, but in talent.
‘Our ability to recruit highly talented people is due to our mission to build a super humanity, humans 2.0: the world sees it.
“And smart people are saying, ‘Wow, this is going to be a great company with an important mission that will change the world.'”