China currently leads the gold medal table at the Paris Olympics alongside the United States, thanks in large part to the impressive skills of its swimmers and divers, who are claiming victory in event after event.
But for many familiar with China’s recent sporting history on the water, all that glitters may not be gold.
Earlier this year, it emerged that more than a third of the 31 swimmers on China’s Paris team were among those who had previously tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing cardiac drug, trimetazidine (TMZ).
Then, just days before the Paris Games were set to begin, American media exposed another Chinese doping scandal, this time involving two swimmers who tested positive in 2022 for a powerful but banned anabolic steroid.
But Chinese athletes aren’t the only ones who have been accused of doping. An anonymous survey of competitors at the 2011 World Athletics Championships found that nearly 44 percent of supposedly “clean” athletes had consumed banned supplements in the previous year (as of 2020, Russia tops the list for violations).
Critics say Enhanced Games is actually trying to sell drugs and other products that fuel the booming anti-aging industry.
But what if there were an alternative Olympics where cheating was not allowed, simply because it was not possible? At the Enhanced Games, which could start as early as next year, the use of performance-enhancing drugs would not only be legal, but actively encouraged.
The Enhanced Games are the dream of a group of wealthy and self-assured Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. The competition will initially focus on five key sporting categories: track and field, swimming, weightlifting, combat sports and gymnastics.
Unlike the Olympics, participants will be paid to compete, with world record-breakers eligible to win $1 million in prize money. Each of the ten athletes chosen to be the “faces” of the games will receive $100,000 (£78,000).
Organizers have yet to reveal exactly what they will and won’t allow, but aside from drugs, possible mechanical enhancements that have been mooted range from bionic implants to artificial intelligence glasses that tell a javelin thrower how to maximize the length of his throw.
The man behind the Enhanced Games, Australian lawyer and entrepreneur Aron D’Souza, says the goal is to harness science and medicine to “elevate humanity to its full potential, through a community of committed athletes.”
He says his idea has implications far beyond sport. He recently told an interviewer: “Imagine a 60-year-old athlete breaking Usain Bolt’s world record. That would force us to think about what it means to retire at 65. It would be one of the most powerful social signifiers in history.”
This kind of lofty rhetoric has attracted financial support from deep-pocketed backers such as billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, a controversial libertarian who regularly receives blood transfusions from 18-year-old donors in a bid to promote his “live forever” plan. A documentary series about the Enhanced Games is also in the works to be produced by a joint venture between Gladiator director Ridley Scott and Tinseltown entrepreneur Rob McElhenney, who jointly bought Wrexham football club with actor Ryan Reynolds.
Widespread illegal doping, the Enhanced Games’ creators say, has made a mockery of events like the Olympics – D’Souza has dismissed the games as “hypocritical, corrupt and dysfunctional” – so why not give every competitor a more level playing field by allowing everyone to do it?
Unsurprisingly, the sporting world has reacted with a mixture of horror and contempt at what many clearly view as nothing more than a dirty little attempt at money-making that can only damage the wider reputation of the sport.
Critics say the Enhanced Games are actually trying to sell drugs and other products that feed the burgeoning anti-aging industry centered in Silicon Valley, for which competitors will serve as superpowered human billboards.
Enhanced Games co-founder, German billionaire Christian Angermayer, recently told Forbes: “I look at the world through the lens of ‘What is the business model or how can we make money?'”
Forbes reports that the London-based company behind the Games is in talks to raise £230m in funding. The World Anti-Doping Agency calls the Enhanced Games “dangerous and irresponsible”, while Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, was rather more blunt: “Well, it sucks, doesn’t it? I can’t really get excited about it.”
He added: “There is only one message and that is that if anyone is stupid enough to feel that they want to participate in that, and they are at the traditional and philosophical end of our sport, they will be banned and they will be banned for a long time.”
Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that the Team Enhanced Games has been cautious about which top athletes it has so far signed up to compete. Only one, former world swimming champion James Magnussen of Australia, has announced he wants to take part.
D’Souza has offered to pay Magnussen $1m (£780,000) if he breaks the 15-year-old world record for the 50m freestyle. Magnussen has said he is willing to “give his best” to become the fastest swimmer in history.
According to D’Souza, more than 900 athletes have expressed interest in competing, including at least six world record holders and a medal winner from Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics.
Another major criticism of the Enhanced Games is that they are dangerous, as many of the banned drugs likely to be used carry significant health risks, including addiction and even death. At least one senior sports official has already predicted the games will end in deaths.
However, organisers insist the games will not be some kind of drug-fuelled Wild West and that competitors will take their substances under “clinical supervision”. Not all drugs will be allowed, they say, although their list of acceptable stimulants has not yet been announced.
Skeptics in the sporting world doubt that dopers are willing to limit their drug use or that the Games organisers will be able to stop them.
Even the Enhanced Games’ own medical advisers have questioned some of its more ambitious claims. Asked about Aron D’Souza’s boast that a doped 60-year-old athlete could run faster than sprint champion Usain Bolt, Dr Michael Sagner of King’s College London said his tendons would snap.
Indeed, critics question everything from its “ethically bankrupt” and “grotesque” concept to the pretentious and earnest claims of its organizers.
The Enhanced Games website, for example, argues that words like “steroid abuser” and “cheater” are “discriminatory language,” while “doping” is “colonialist” and “racially biased” because, it claims, black athletes are disproportionately accused of doing so.
While some argue that, as unpleasant as it all sounds, this could be the future of the sport, it remains to be seen whether Enhanced Games will ever take off, with or without performance-enhancing drugs.
