By now, you may be familiar with Aron D’Souza – an Oxford-educated lawyer, entrepreneur, self-publicist, the type of character for whom LinkedIn was invented – and his bid to become the sports world’s Victor Frankenstein. In publicly announcing his ambitious plans for the Enhanced Games – essentially, a drugs Olympics, where doping is encouraged and anything goes – last week, D’Souza insisted his motives have little to do with personal financial gain.
“I’ve had a very successful career as a venture capitalist, as a tech entrepreneur,” said the man whose newly created online biography features his inclusion on the 2014 Australian Men’s Style magazine’s “Men of Influence” list. “If I wanted to simply make money I would continue to do that.”
Instead, he suggests his motivation is deeper rooted. This personal crusade to challenge the International Olympic Committee’s hegemony is one he says he has felt since the age of seven, when he first began to realise the “ever-broken system” that governs the world’s biggest sporting event. In that belief, alone, he may well find widespread support.
D’Souza has been omnipresent in recent days, courted by the world’s media as he aims to generate traction for an ambitious and hugely controversial project he intends to fund “like a traditional Silicon Valley start-up”. So far, he has provided all the cash himself; next comes the hunt for the millions he hopes will make his dream (and others’ nightmare) a reality.
It does not require a mammoth dose of scepticism to question whether such a grotesque and dangerous idea will ever make it off the ground given how risky any association with an overtly drug-positive organisation would be for potential backers or athletes. So how has D’Souza already managed to convince three Olympians to risk their reputations by joining his athletes advisory commission?
A near-decade-old “man of influence” clearly has his ways, although even he might struggle to argue against the cohort’s obscurity: South Africa’s Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Roland Schoeman, fellow swimmer Brett Fraser, who made the Olympic semi-finals three times for the Cayman Islands, and the Canadian bobsleigh athlete Christina Smith.
Schoeman has served a doping ban (which he insisted, and was unable to prove, was the result of a contaminated product), but the threat of being tarnished by association is strong. Joining the Enhanced Games sharks in their tank while insisting you are not a great white is a tricky balancing act. Legacies that have taken careers to build can be trashed in an instant.
“That is a calculated concern that I thought of before I became involved,” said Fraser, whose elevated title of chief athletes officer meant he was allowed to speak to the Guardian without D’Souza’s presence. “The blood passport was established in 2008 with Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency). I can test today and prove without doubt that I was a clean athlete back then, when I was performing, and currently today.
“I’m not concerned with what other people think about my past. Everyone who I trained with and coaches all know that I was a natural athlete.”
There is a particular lexicon promoted by the Enhanced Games. For “clean”, see “natural”. For “cheat”, see “enhanced”. And for someone who supports the cause but would not want to actively partake themselves, see “ally”.
Asked if she would take advantage of the drug free-for-all the Enhanced Games promotes, Smith – with D’Souza present – said she would eschew illegal performance-enhancing substances, as she says she did throughout her bobsleigh career. “I would be an ally,” she said. “I would be delighted to be in an organisation that did not exploit their athletes.”
Of any reputational damage her new association may bring, she said: “I have no hesitation or insecurities knowing what I did, how I performed and my results were as pure as pure with my human abilities. There’s definitely a side that people may go and make assumptions, and that’s inevitable.”
As for Schoeman, the biggest name involved, who has returned from his drugs ban and will compete at next month’s World Championships aged 43, the Guardian was told he was only available to answer questions on email via D’Souza’s assistant. But the South African failed to respond.
In explaining his vision, D’Souza – who does not drink alcohol or coffee and says “my body is my temple” – proposes his competition will contain “science-enhanced superheroes”. Using language that became common during the Covid pandemic, he suggests drugs should be a personal decision: “My body, my choice. Your body, your choice. Individuals who are adults, with free and informed consent, should be able to do to their bodies what they wish.”
Talking eloquently about how his organisation would strongly promote a science and medical-backed drug-taking regime, D’Souza said it would make doping safer. And of those who would inevitably push themselves far beyond responsible limits, he asks: “Should you be deciding for yourself what risks you are willing to take or should the government or sports federation decide that?”
It is this argument to which Fraser and Smith appear to subscribe. “I’m for bodily autonomy,” said Fraser. “There is a revolution that needs to happen and I think that’s happening now.”
For D’Souza, that rhetoric seemingly has no bounds. “I’m a gay man and so much about building this movement makes me think about the history and acceptance of LGBT people in the wider community,” he said.
“Think back 50 years ago, being a gay man was like being enhanced today. It’s stigmatised, it’s marginalised, it’s illegal in some senses. What changed? Well, Pride happened. A movement of people, a revolution of people who rallied around an idea of acceptance.”
Schoeman, Fraser and Smith are willing to risk their names for another one, hoping that cheaters (and their ‘allies’) can prosper.
