Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel and a cohort of other high-profile investors are funding an alternative athletic competition called the Enhanced Games. This initiative is set to sanction and shed light on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
Peter Thiel, renowned for his early investments in PayPal and Facebook, alongside several other notable venture capitalists like Christian Angermayer and Balaji Srinivasan, have pooled their resources into this controversial project, which is expected to run parallel to the conventional Olympic standards.
The Enhanced Games represent a vision that will openly embrace the utilization of nutritional supplements and biohacking techniques aimed at exploring the edges of human capacity. The person at the helm of this venture is Dr. Aron D’Souza, a lawyer known for orchestrating Thiel’s legal pursuit against Gawker Media.
Details about this ground-breaking event will be brought to the forefront on April 17, with additional promotion planned during the Summer Olympics taking place in Paris this July.
Although the exact sum remains undisclosed, Dr. D’Souza revealed to The New York Post that funds raised are substantial, amounting to “high single-digit millions.” This financial backing is deemed enough to lay the groundwork for the inaugural games. Discussions are ongoing with potential host cities equipped with the necessary infrastructure for the events, though no definitive location has been announced.
The annual competition will consist of five sports: swimming, gymnastics, weightlifting, track and field, and combat. It is targeting a commencement date sometime in the following year, with an intent to utilize existing venues for the events.
In stark contrast to the Olympics, where D’Souza claims a significant number of athletes covertly use banned substances, the Enhanced Games will allow participants to openly use any substances they choose. This policy emphasizes individual autonomy, as reflected in D’Souza’s comment to The Post: “My body, my choice, your body, your choice.”
A loose eligibility criterion welcomes all athletes to partake, regardless of their status as professionals, former professionals or amateurs. By authorizing the use of performance-enhancing substances, the organizers hope to provide valuable insights for researchers investigating methods to improve longevity and promote ‘healthy aging.’
Dr. D’Souza suggests that a larger data pool collected from athletes committed to self-improvement through science could be instrumental in identifying treatments and compounds that extend human life, much as innovations like ChatGPT have revolutionized the field of AI.