Aron D’Souza, the brash brain behind the “doping Olympics”
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noun [ U ]
/ˈbræʃ.nəs/
**behaviour that shows a lot of confidence and not much respect:**
He developed a reputation for brashness.
He later confided that his brashness masked his fear of failure.
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Aron D’Souza, the brash brain behind the “doping Olympics” The president of the Enhanced /enjanst/ Games wants to push forward human evolution
MANY ENTREPRENEURS /ontreprenúrs/ launching both an international sporting event and a novel consumer-health business would be satisfied with the scope of their ambitions. Not so Aron D’Souza, who frames the future in epic terms. Last year, at a conference in Oxford on human enhancement, he told a crowd of scientists, athletes /ázlits/ and investors: “Every great moment in history begins somewhere. And when we think of important institutions [or] social movements such as the United Nations, liberal democracy, human rights, we often forget these are the creation of men, not gods.”
Mr D’Souza’s critics might accuse him of playing God. The trim, 40-year-old Australian lawyer and entrepreneur is founder and president of the **forthcoming** “Enhanced Games”, which have been dubbed the “doping Olympics”. Athletes will be able to earn up to $1m for breaking world records using the sorts of drugs that would normally disqualify them. The first games are planned for Las Vegas in 2026; this week Mr D’Souza announced that one world swimming record has already been broken in a trial run of the pharmacological interventions that will be used in the games next year.
He seems to relish taking on the project’s many critics—some of whom charge that the games will be dangerous or unfair. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is among them. He dishes out jibes /dyaibs/ ****in return, pointing out that conventional athletics is rife with secret and unsafe doping practices, and that the wealthy IOC does not do enough to reward hard-up athletes.
He runs on a flywheel of self-belief, expressing no doubt that the games will go ahead or about their unconventional financial underpinnings. They will not rely on selling broadcasting rights as heavily as most big sporting events do, but instead make money from hawking to consumers enhancement products, such as testosterone, known to be useful for improving athletic performance. But the Enhanced /en-janst/ Games are not really an attempt to overturn conventional sports so much as a niche /nish/ effort to try a radically different approach to sport.
His style is less that of a CEO than that of the founder of a movement. He sees the games as a catalyst for changing the very trajectory of humanity and altering the boundaries of what it means to be human. He wants people to expect to improve themselves beyond what would be possible in nature, describing it as a human right. The games are just the first step. This may seem outlandish, but public interest has been shifting in his favour for some time, with rising interest in consumer health, longevity and enhancement products. Not everyone is on board, though. Some people worry that this sort of shift in consumer and sporting behaviour could push young people to make ill-informed choices about their bodies.
The games have friends in the world of politics as well as in Silicon Valley. Indeed, they are particularly popular in the MAGA-sphere. Mr D’Souza says, “We have a very deep relationship with the White House and with the Trump family and they are, in fact, investors in this project.” Donald Trump junior, the president’s son, has invested. Mr D’Souza points out that the next Olympic Games will take place in Los Angeles in 2028, and need the support of America’s government. One interpretation of these observations is that the IOC may wish to temper its noisy criticism of his project and be more diplomatic.
Despite superhuman ambitions, Mr D’Souza admits that travel and jet lag take their toll on him. During sleepless nights in anonymous hotel rooms he wonders whether he is doing the right thing. He muses that he could be at home in a swanky part of London with his new husband, or perhaps driving his Ferrari. But then, with characteristic self-assurance, he explains his reasoning for staying the course: “The most effective people make a lot of money very quickly and they just retire and take the easy path.” He prefers the challenge; he would see it as a “moral failure” if he gave up on trying to “advance humanity”. ■
trim - neat and tidy in appearance; in good physical condition
forthcoming - about to happen or appear in the near future
dubbed - given an unofficial name or nickname
trial run - a test or experimental performance of something