On your marks, get set, dope! Welcome to the Enhanced Games – the sporting event no one wants | Marina Hyde
Athletes paid $1m to take enough performance-enhancing drugs to win records? Truly we get the TV sports we deserve
How encouraging to learn of another shot in the arm for the Enhanced Games. If you’re not familiar with it, this is the sporting event scheduled for inauguration next year in which openly drug-taking athletes will be able to take part in a “better version of the Olympic Games”. I know – imagine being able to watch track and field but with athletes who dope. Who among us can even picture it?
None of which is to sound as offhand as World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe did a few weeks ago when he was asked about the Enhanced Games, and judged: “It’s bollocks, isn’t it? … I really don’t get sleepless nights over it, it’s not going to be a page turner is it?” I wouldn’t bank on that. By way of background, the project is the brainchild of Aron D’Souza, some weirdo businessman who doesn’t even drink coffee (of course), and is partly funded by biohacking Palantir horseman Peter Thiel and AI/psychedelics/crypto investor Christian Angermayer (double of course).