Here Come the Steroid Games

Image by enhanced.org

To attribute weighty moral codes to athletes has always been a silly pastime of the judging classes and flesh admiring voyeurs. But sporting bodies, in a manner similar to the clergy, demand something called the level playing field. Fairness and fair play imply that sports people will follow various principles and rules in competition. They will, for instance, do nothing to unravel and disturb this understanding of détente between the supremely talented. We are all gifted on Olympus; may the best athlete behave in accordance with accepted practices. No need for superior sporting machinery, superior equipment, enhanced biceps, steroid-boosted bodies. To do so would upset the balance.

The historical record suggests otherwise. Spectators who barrack for an athlete or a team will not mind the odd tinkering with rules, a streak of sharp practice. The same for those playing the sports. The Fair Play principle, revered and cherished by officials and gatekeepers noisy about equitable performance on pitch and field, has become a ritualised and abused fetish, the comical effigy one salutes at big sporting carnivals even as it is being burned.

Organisations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) exist to defend these principles through drug testing, but they operate unevenly and tyrannically. They are also of questionable effect; in the undergrowth of performance is always the nagging suggestion that many athletes do participate undetected. WADA’s own estimate is that anywhere up to 40% of athletes may have taken performance-enhancing substances at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021.

Countries, seeing their sporting figures as extensions of the State and its values, have also been loose with their manipulation of fair play, subverting rules using their athletes as surrogates for national glory. To win gold at the Olympics, for instance, is to win credit with the home audience and favour for politicians and grey officials. All must therefore be done to get the result: doping, meddling, cheating. It’s all a matter of degree.

With such standards of hypocrisy at play, it is little wonder that the concept of an Enhanced Games has taken so long to make it to the planning stage. The figures involved should make participants wary, but PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and its creator Aron D’Souza have expressed a desire to finance drug dabbling and experimentation, featuring heavily doped bipeds performing to the fullest of their juiced abilities. Five events in Australia are planned to feature the body beautiful, and the body potentially ruined: swimming, gymnastics, weightlifting, track and field, and combat.

As the site hails, “Backed by the world’s top venture capitalists, the Enhanced Games is the Olympics of the future. When 44% of athletes already use performance enhancements, it is time to safely celebrate science.” The project is adamant in stating, tersely, that, “Sports can be safer without drug testing.” That leaves the athletes free to partake in experimentation, where science can be used “for the pursuit of human excellence.”

D’Souza, an Australian, London-based lawyerly entrepreneur, knows what appeals. He derides the organisers of the Olympics, the corrupted fat cats who bag huge salaries while most athletes participate for a barely manageable pittance. “The IOC (International Olympic Committee) has effectively been a one-party state running the world of sport for 100 years,” he reasons. “And now the opposition party is here. We are ready for a fight.” He suggests a profit-sharing model for drug taking participants, with cash incentives for those breaking records.

The games sound like a pharmaceutical free for all, lubricated by venture capital, and it is by no means clear how informed consent will work in this regard. Keen to break records, and keen to avoid being institutionally excoriated and publicly shamed for doing so, is hardly a recipe for sober judgment. This is despite D’Souza’s assertion that athletes are adults with “a right to do with their body what they wish – my body, my choice; your body, your choice.” The one-party state becomes substituted by a cadre of investors, doctors and advisors, all keen on getting their results from the bodies on show.

The games proposal, argue two University of Canberra academics in the often sterile columns of The Conversation, “does not set out how the increased risk to athletes exploited for commercial gain will be managed. The games also propose to include events in which the burgeoning elite competitors are young and vulnerable, such as gymnastics and swimming, which may have serious implications for these children and their carers.”

Publicity for the events has already seen over 500 registered athletes, along with a sprinkling of Olympians. Canadian bobsledder Christina Smith, who participated in the 2002 Winter games, is a member of the event’s Athlete Commission.

James Magnussen, an Australian swimmer, Olympian, and two-time world champion in the 100m freestyle has made a very public declaration that he will “juice up”. And why not? His brain turned mushy after being told that he was the golden boy at the London Olympics in 2012. Australian sporting commentators were convinced that the swimming events he participated in were his, absurdly declaring him victorious in advance of the events. As things turned out, he was silvered and bronzed.

Formerly known as The Missile, Magnussen is keen to spend six months on a regime to “juice to the gills” in order to compete for A$1.5 million if he breaks the 50m world record. Things are already starting to sound hazy for the aspirant: “I’m going to need one of those super suits to float me, because if I get unbelievably jacked, then I’ll sink.”

Some of the critics may sound like spoilsports (well, anti-doping ones), but the relevant dangers are substantial. Are athletes in their right mind in saying yes to such a distorting diet, becoming, effectively taut assets of body and matter for venture capitalism? Given the babbling from Magnussen, distinctly not.

 

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About Dr Binoy Kampmark 1443 Articles
Dr. Binoy Kampmark is a senior lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University. He was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. He is a contributing editor to CounterPunch and can be followed at @bkampmark.

10 Comments

  1. It seems that the ultra-wealthy are looking for even more ways to make money and take control of institutions for their own benefit and power. We saw what happened when a multi-millionaire took over cricket, not so much for the benefit of the players, but probably an ego trip. Mind you, the game has eventually benefitted, but now there seems to be a concentration of money and power limited to a few countries. The lesser cricketing nations cannot keep up with the spending of the richer nations. Will the Olympics games go the same way? What if Elon Musk or Geoff Bezos decide to expand their interests and ownership of what traditionally ‘belonged’ to the people?

  2. Get B Jucking-Foyce in here, with schooners of steroids for the ailing dicky, dissolving other driving chemicals. And a glass or two of Bribe, Backhander, Freeby. Our champion incoherent mumbling horizontality could beat them all, eggs included.

  3. from my perspective, any type of games is corrupt as is with “so called fair rules” in place.

    Nobody under the age of 18 should ever be coerced into thinking they need to get to any olympic games.

    Technology has corrupted all athletics. Take jock straps off men and women would leave them in tears. Its physically impossible for a man to run fast with his balls bouncing around. Imagine the long jump or the high jump……..i get tears just thinking about it.
    Its totally gender biased against women.

    So banning steroids to me is an insane act of trying to limit technology when in fact the biggest leap forward is the humble jock strap. No man on steroids will ever beat a woman in a race if the technology battle was even handed.

  4. Purely as an observation mind you, it will be interesting to see just how hard the concept is pushed and by whom.
    How much for example would it cost an interested advertiser to snag a contract?
    I am beginning already to see a list of air-heads (oops, sorry, influencers), ready to push the concept.
    As to more practical matters, where will the “contests’ take place?
    What will be the favoured locations and in which State?
    Presumably State Governments would need to OK use of public venues – unless the intent is “wholly private”.
    I think we can guess already that entrance tickets won’t be cheap.
    Overall, I think the best analogy that comes to mind is cage-fighting – and about as interesting.

  5. It would be interesting to read the disclaimers and waivers the organisers will no doubt have the competitors sign. If this goes ahead, you can bet on (amongst pretty well everything else) how many fatalities there will be.

  6. @leefe.
    You raise a critically important point re: disclaimers and waivers.
    I have to assume that no self-respecting medico would give consent.
    Also, can participants expect a free-pass from their Health Fund?
    Will some type of personal insurance be mandatory?

  7. I’m coming to this discussion a little late it seems.

    Does this mean that blokes can compete as Sheilas just with a little lippy and a bit of eye shadow.

    What are the rules ?

  8. The first steroid games Tiniest Testicles event would be swamped with competitors. The ‘roid Rage event would be a bloodbath.

  9. I am just flabbergasted over this and can only ask WHY???? Aside from the drugs being illegal what about the health of the athletes??? Magnussen is quoted as saying he will be “juiced to the gills”. Are the athletes really that desperate for a few bucks to risk their lives??? What about the filthy moneygrubbing scum that are trying to organise this, the ones who will make the most money from it??? Do they even care about the health of the athletes???

  10. PP,
    “WHY???”
    Because the exorbitant profits that betting syndicates and corporate sponsors levee from the outcome of competitive sports motivates & enables them to lobby and influence governing and regulatory bodies.
    (Bigger + faster = BETter!)

    Statistically, more people will tune into an Olympic event if there seems a reasonable chance of a record being broken.

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