Will enhanced games stay? Credit: custom image
Which of us can honestly say we haven't considered hosting the Doppler Olympics? It's a classic of the boring pub chat genre, a short cut to other nihilistic knee-jerks to solve confusing problems. Death penalty for shoplifters! Make the shoulder an extra lane! Lock the villains of the world in a cage and let them fight without any rules! Or, as it is otherwise called, the UFC.
Such thought experiments are not usually done with well-maintained websites. Enhanced Games provided an opportunity to justify the Olympics without the inconvenience of drug testing. Notably, this idea seems more concrete than the European Super League, whose still-active homepage shows a rickety logo and Internazionale playing in a stadium that hasn't been built yet.
Aaron D'Souza is a man who wants to present cheating as a mere “improvement”. He seems to aim to position his child as a noble cause, and you can't blame him for being arrogant. “Each Olympics, another group of brave athletes set new world records, only to have their medals annulled, their careers put on hold and their names trampled into the mud,” the website says. “It's time to end this oppressive cycle.”
There are sections called “Our Team” and “Action Plans,” as well as a section called “Science is Real,” which the organization appears to be promoting as its main social media message. Finally, a hashtag we can all stand behind.
It's the 'language matters' page that's the most troubling, using phraseology usually associated with the right reasons to explain that doping is really… okay? There are calls to “defend the enemies of progress” and an interpolation stating that “doping is a colonialist insult that stinks of symbolic and historical violence.” Also, “improvement is not a lifestyle preference or choice” is a statement left agonizingly inexplicable, which appears to have been Ctrl+Vd from the Australian State of Victoria's Inclusive Language Guide.
He is the fastest man in the world. He broke Usain Bolt's 100m record.
But the world isn't ready for it yet. The Olympics hate him.
He is being denigrated. He will be acquitted.
Come see him compete in the 2024 Extended Games. pic.twitter.com/iop3IUptGz
— enhanced games (@enhanced_games) June 19, 2023
The Enhanced Games Guide also provides alternatives to problematic phrases. The 'steroid abuser' becomes the 'professional athlete', 'performance enhancing drugs' becomes 'performance therapy', and instead of 'cheat' we are told to use 'science demonstration'.
It is obvious that this is not the case. A joke commercial featuring rousing orchestral music supporting a sprinter who claims to have broken Usain Bolt's 100m world record. “The Olympics hate me,” he says. I need your help to get out. I need your help to stop the hate.”
Will this be the future of the sport?
Some of Enhanced Games' arguments are easy enough to refute. The International Olympic Committee is not perfect and it is absurd that anyone should be telling someone else what they can add to their body. It's less absurd if the consequence of using some of these things is to be disqualified from sports.
Think about it and the idea collapses. Who will broadcast? Which companies would like to sponsor it? Since 1967 San Francisco is not available, where will it take place?
Perhaps Enhanced Games will be ahead of its time and prove to be right. You can absolutely imagine his slogans taking over social media leaders who are desperately trying to take the opposite stance in order to appear interesting. In this case, why stop there? Maybe our grandchildren should watch a sporting event: sprinters with jetpacks, road cyclists with motors, and the end of the disgusting stigmatization of swimmers with armbands.
In fact, this is an ongoing problem of our time. Any new tournament sport faces a scramble for attention with endlessly compelling technology and social media. Will he watch athletics, weightlifting or boxing, knowing that all the participants are slightly stronger than in their current form?
The drug games will not differ markedly from the traditional Olympic Games with their balanced ideas. that it is impossible to allow competitors to cheat, sorry to “strengthen”. You hope that this is all an elaborate joke, or that its creators will be embarrassed enough to claim that it is.
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