The person behind the doping-enthused Enhanced Video games, Aron D’Souza, has revealed he acquired tens of millions of {dollars} in monetary backing for his entrepreneurial thought a 12 months and a half earlier than his first deliberate Video games in the summertime of 2025.
In an interview with Sifted journal, D’Souza revealed that he has teamed up with German-American billionaire and co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, who has invested a “single-digit million-dollar quantity” into the Enhanced Video games. Thiel isn’t the one investor on board; cryptocurrency investor and billionaire Christian Angermayer and Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of crypto alternate Coinbase, have additionally invested in D’Souza’s thought.
Thanks to Peter Thiel and all the opposite traders who’ve backed the pro-science way forward for sports activities. https://t.co/ZdTtdIJ9OS
— Enhanced Video games (@enhanced_games) January 31, 2024
What are the Enhanced Video games?
D’Souza’s thought is to supply a substitute for what organizers understand as a corrupt Olympics. They criticize the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) for its alleged exploitation of athletes, lack of fee of athletes and rejection of “enhanced” world data. In keeping with their web site, “The Enhanced Video games promotes using science and focuses on core sports activities, aiming to interrupt world data and guarantee truthful compensation for athletes.” They argue that performance-enhancing medication, when used responsibly, can considerably improve coaching outcomes and permit athletes to achieve their full potential.
He’s the quickest man on the earth and a proud enhanced athlete. He has damaged Usain Bolt’s world file. The brand new Olympics are right here, backed by VCs Christian Angermayer and Peter Thiel, the place efficiency enhancements are allowed. https://t.co/OydUh3J6uw pic.twitter.com/P0zKpTzA4T
— Enhanced Video games (@enhanced_games) January 31, 2024
No distance operating!
“The Olympic Video games are this historic mannequin reinvented by a colonialist aristocrat in 1896 for the Victorian world,” D’Souza tells Sifted. “We have to design a modernized Video games for social media [like TikTok and Instagram] and broadcast tv for brief consideration spans.”
Like me, you is likely to be asking what sports activities these modernized/doped Video games contain. The Enhanced Video games will deal with a restricted variety of single-person occasions which can be of excessive curiosity, like observe and discipline, swimming, gymnastics, boxing and weightlifting. D’Souza plans to dispense with occasions that “individuals aren’t excited by, like badminton, curling and long-distance operating.” In keeping with D’Souza, group sports activities, which require extra rivals and extra “advanced” logistics, are additionally out.
“The core focus of the Video games is breaking world data,” stated D’Souza. “We solely need athletes who’ve the potential to interrupt world data in sports activities that really matter. And so by having a a lot narrower set [of events], we will ship rather more cost-effectively.”
Million-dollar prize swimming pools
In contrast to the Olympics, which solely pays medalling athletes, Enhanced Video games rivals will likely be paid a base charge for competing, with bonuses for successful occasions and setting world data.
“We anticipate there’ll be multi-million-dollar prize swimming pools for breaking world data,” says D’Souza. “We have now to create actual incentives for athletes to leap ship from this very established prestigious system.”
For instance, if a male sprinter breaks 9 seconds for a 100m dash, D’Souza says there may very well be “tens of tens of millions in bonuses.” In keeping with Sifted, the Enhanced Video games is seeking to elevate one other $10 to twenty million earlier than they plan to placed on their first occasion, in summer season 2025. The Video games can be on the lookout for a broadcasting deal and sponsorships.
The motion is beginning…how far will you go? Everyone seems to be speaking about The Enhanced Video games, it is time to be part of the dialog. pic.twitter.com/i6gjdTIJ12
— Enhanced Video games (@enhanced_games) January 9, 2024
Public response
Up to now, D’Souza’s doped idea has acquired lots of hate on-line, calling it a “hazard to well being,” “a clown present” and “a joke.” Even World Athletics president Sebastian Coe commented on the Video games in a current podcast interview, saying “nobody inside athletics takes the Enhanced Video games severely.”
World Athletics president says observe and discipline won’t ever be drug-free
Travis Tygart, the pinnacle of the U.S. Anti-Doping Company (USADA), additionally known as the Video games “farcical … probably unlawful in lots of [U.S.] states” and “a harmful clown present, not an actual sport.” The idea has additionally been shunned by American sprinting legend Michael Johnson, who publically known as the video games “ridiculous” and an “illogical PR stunt for doped athletes” on social media.
