TOM LEONARD: How Silicon Valley tycoons are plotting a rival ‘Enhanced Games’ where doping will be ENCOURAGED!

China currently leads the gold medal count at the Paris Olympics, along with the US. This is largely due 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 aquatic sports history, all that glitters may not be gold.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that more than a third of the 31 swimmers in the Chinese swimming team from Paris had previously tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ), a banned performance-enhancing heart drug.

A few days before the Paris Games, the American media revealed another Chinese doping scandal. This time it involved two swimmers who tested positive for a powerful but banned anabolic steroid in 2022.

But athletes from China aren’t the only ones accused of doping. An anonymous poll of participants at the 2011 World Athletics Championships found that nearly 44 percent of so-called “clean” athletes had used banned supplements the year before. (As of 2020, Russia tops the list of violations.)

But what if there were an alternative Olympics where cheating wouldn’t happen, simply because it wasn’t possible? At the Enhanced Games, which could begin as early as next year, the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) would not only be legal, but actively encouraged.

The Enhanced Games is the dream child of a group of confident, wealthy venture capitalists and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley. The competition will initially focus on five major sports categories: track and field, swimming, weightlifting, martial arts and gymnastics.

Unlike the Olympics, competitors are paid to compete, with those who break world records eligible for $1 million in prizes. Each of the ten athletes chosen to be the ‘face’ of the games receives $100,000 (£78,000).

Organizers have yet to reveal exactly what they will and won’t allow, but beyond the drugs, possible mechanical enhancements have also been mooted, ranging from bionic implants to AI glasses that tell a javelin thrower how to maximize the length of his throw.

The man behind the Enhanced Games, Australian lawyer and businessman Aron D’Souza, says the aim is to use science and medicine to “elevate humanity to its full potential, through a community of dedicated athletes”.

He claims his idea has implications far beyond sport, recently telling an interviewer: ‘Imagine a 60-year-old breaking Usain Bolt’s world record. That would force us to rethink what it means to retire at 65. It would be one of the most powerful social signifiers in history.’

Such lofty rhetoric has attracted financial backing from deep-pocketed backers like billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, a controversial libertine who regularly receives blood transfusions from 18-year-old donors in a bid to further his plan to “live forever.” 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 bought Wrexham Football Club with actor Ryan Reynolds.

According to the makers of the Enhanced Games, illegal doping is rampant, making events like the Olympics a laughing stock. D’Souza has even dismissed the Games as “hypocritical, corrupt and dysfunctional.” So why not level the playing field for all participants by giving everyone the chance to compete?

It is therefore no surprise that the sporting world has reacted with horror and contempt to what many clearly see as nothing more than a dirty, money-grubbing enterprise that can only damage the reputation of sport as a whole.

Critics say the Enhanced Games are really about selling drugs and other products that fuel the booming anti-aging industry centered in Silicon Valley, with competitors serving as human billboards with superpowers.

Enhanced Games co-founder, German billionaire Christian Angermayer, recently told Forbes: “I look at the world from the point of view 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 £230 million in funding. The World Anti-Doping Agency has called the Enhanced Games “dangerous and irresponsible,” while Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, was more blunt: “Well, it’s shit, isn’t it? I can’t really get excited about it.”

He added: ‘There’s only one message and that is that if anyone is idiotic enough to want to participate in that, and they come from the traditional, philosophical corner of our sport, they will be banned, and for a long time.’

It is no surprise then that Team Enhanced Games has been coy about which top athletes have signed up to compete so far. Only one, former world champion swimmer James Magnussen of Australia, has announced his intention to compete.

D’Souza has offered Magnussen $1 million (£780,000) if he breaks the 15-year-old world record for the 50m freestyle. Magnussen has said he is ready to ‘push the envelope’ to become the fastest swimmer in history.

According to D’Souza, more than 900 athletes have expressed interest in taking part, including at least six world record holders and a Team GB medallist at the Tokyo Olympics.

Another major criticism of the Enhanced Games is that it is dangerous, as many of the banned drugs involved pose significant health risks, including addiction and even death. At least one senior sports official has predicted that the Games will end in deaths.

Organizers stress, however, that the Games will not be a drug-fueled Wild West, and that participants will take their PEDs under “clinical supervision.” Not all drugs will be allowed, they say, though their list of acceptable stimulants has yet to be announced.

Skeptics in the sports world doubt whether doping users are willing to limit their drug use and whether the Games organizers can stop them.

Even the Enhanced Games’ own medical advisers have poked holes in some of the most ambitious claims. Asked about Aron D’Souza’s boast that a 60-year-old could run faster than champion sprinter Usain Bolt on drugs, Dr Michael Sagner of King’s College London said his tendons would snap.

Indeed, critics have criticized everything from the “ethically bankrupt” and “grotesque” concept to the pretentious and serious claims made by the organizers.

For example, the website Enhanced Games claims that words like “steroid abuser” and “cheating” are “discriminatory language,” while “doping” is “colonialist” and “steeped in racial prejudice,” because black athletes are disproportionately accused of it.

While some argue that this, as unpleasant as it all sounds, could be the future of the sport, the question remains whether the Enhanced Games will ever get off the ground – with or without performance-enhancing drugs.