The person behind the doping-enthused Enhanced Video games, Aron D’Souza, has revealed he obtained 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 offer 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 information. In line with their web site, “The Enhanced Video games promotes the usage of science and focuses on core sports activities, aiming to interrupt world information and guarantee honest compensation for athletes.” They argue that performance-enhancing medicine, when used responsibly, can considerably improve coaching outcomes and permit athletes to succeed in their full potential.
He’s the quickest man on the planet and a proud enhanced athlete. He has damaged Usain Bolt’s world document. 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 historical 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 concentrate on a restricted variety of single-person occasions which can be of excessive curiosity, like monitor and subject, swimming, gymnastics, boxing and weightlifting. D’Souza plans to dispense with occasions that “individuals aren’t all for, like badminton, curling and long-distance operating.” In line with D’Souza, staff sports activities, which require extra rivals and extra “advanced” logistics, are additionally out.
“The core focus of the Video games is breaking world information,” mentioned D’Souza. “We solely need athletes who’ve the potential to interrupt world information in sports activities that truly matter. And so by having a a lot narrower set [of events], we are able to ship rather more cost-effectively.”
Million-dollar prize swimming pools
Not like the Olympics, which solely pays medalling athletes, Enhanced Video games rivals will probably be paid a base price for competing, with bonuses for profitable occasions and setting world information.
“We anticipate there’ll be multi-million-dollar prize swimming pools for breaking world information,” says D’Souza. “We’ve 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 could possibly be “tens of tens of millions in bonuses.” In line with Sifted, the Enhanced Video games is seeking to increase one other $10 to twenty million earlier than they plan to placed on their first occasion, in summer time 2025. The Video games can also 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 a part of the dialog. pic.twitter.com/i6gjdTIJ12
— Enhanced Video games (@enhanced_games) January 9, 2024
Public response
To date, D’Souza’s doped idea has obtained plenty 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 latest podcast interview, saying “nobody inside athletics takes the Enhanced Video games critically.”
World Athletics president says monitor and subject won’t ever be drug-free
Travis Tygart, the pinnacle of the U.S. Anti-Doping Company (USADA), additionally referred to 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 referred to as the video games “ridiculous” and an “illogical PR stunt for doped athletes” on social media.
Doping-approved “Enhanced Games” receives millions in financial backing
