There’s excellent news for steroid followers: juicers will lastly get their day on the sphere. A who’s who of extraordinarily on-line traders pitched in to fund a collection of occasions referred to as the Enhanced Video games, which describes itself as “the 21st Century Olympics without drug testing.” The record consists of Christian Angermayer, enterprise capitalist, Balaji Srinivasan, former Coinbase CTO, and Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and frenemy of Elon Musk.
“Unlike the Olympic Games, Enhanced believes that excellence deserves to be rewarded,” mentioned Aron D’Souza, President of the Enhanced Video games, in a press release. “Support from the world’s leading venture capitalists enables us to create the structures that pay athletes fairly.” (D’Souza beforehand led Thiel’s litigation against Gawker, Gizmodo’s former mother or father firm.)
D’Souza mentioned Enhanced will deal with world data—world data that gained’t depend.
Steroids, the Enhanced Video games insists, are good for athletes and the world. Not like the true Olympics, which refuses to let go of its boring obsession with well being and equity, Enhanced guarantees its upcoming present can be a “world-class sporting event” that’s match for the fashionable period. The group even paid a health care provider to say the entire thing is wholesome, sensible, and funky.
“Contemporary drug testing practiced in sports today is not necessarily about athlete safety; it often skews the public perception of fairness and health in competitive sports,” mentioned Michael Sagner, MD, a member of the Enhanced Video games’ Scientific and Medical Advisory Fee, within the press launch. “Enhanced will be adopting a sophisticated safety protocol which puts the athlete’s health first—including comprehensive health checks before and after competitions.”
Sanger guarantees that Enhanced will display screen for preexisting circumstances earlier than primarily encouraging individuals to take medication.
The Enhanced Video games will embody lots of the similar sports activities you take pleasure in on the non-weirdo Olympics, reminiscent of monitor and subject, swimming, gymnastics, weight lifting, and fight sports activities. There’s no phrase on when the primary Enhanced Video games will happen.
Due to Enhanced’s rich backers, D’Souza guarantees, the occasions gained’t waste taxpayer cash, which, one has to confess, does sound good once you evaluate it to the true Olympics, which dumps billions of taxpayer {dollars} into poorly thought of infrastructure that’s usually used as soon as and left to rot.
“Just as the ancient Olympics were revived and renovated in 1896 for the Victorian world, the Enhanced Games is once again renovating the Olympic model for the twenty-first century,” D’Souza mentioned. “In the era of accelerating technological and scientific change, the world needs a sporting event that embraces the future, particularly advances in medical science.”
Thomas Germain is a senior reporter for Gizmodo.com, which, like Deadspin, is owned by G/O Media.
