3 minute read

Australians could be among athletes signing up for the pro-drug Enhanced Games after the Paris Olympics.

What if the Aussie bloke behind Enhanced Games is right?

What if he really is about to destroy the Olympics?

And kick along a trillion dollar industry in the process?

Aron D'Souza knows it sounds outlandish.

But the Melbourne-born London based president of Enhanced Games means business.

"We have had thousands and thousands of athletes register interest with us, we have negotiations with many," D'Souza told AAP.

"It's quite simple: we're going to immediately start signing formal engagements after the Paris Olympics."

More Australians could join swimmer James Magnussen in signing for the multi-sports competition for drug-takers.

They're not just performance-enhanced athletes.

They're the shopfront of a new-age industry with an age-old premise: the fountain of youth. Could be worth trillions.

In D'Souza's vision, Enhanced Games is the vehicle to build "super humanity - humans 2.0"; to stop a stigma preventing wider use of medically-supervised enhancements in society.

Some investors liken Enhanced Games, and by extension the enhancement industry, to investing in AI in 2010.

He reckons they're selling it short.

"It may sound a bit science fiction," D'Souza said.

"It may or may not take a long time to develop but if we get it right, it's laying a claim to what I believe will be the largest industry of all time."

D'Souza tells potential investors of the weight loss drug ozempic, an enhancement drug which added $US1 trillion ($A1.5 trillion) to the market capitalisation of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.

"In contrast, all the AI start-ups including Open AI are only worth $US200 billion ($A300 billion)," he said.

"So one enhancement drug is worth five times all of AI.

"This doesn't click in their brain until I make that analogy, that human enhancements as an industry is so large.

"And what is the greatest projection for human enhancements? Enhanced Games."

Enhanced Games staff will be in Paris canvassing athletes as D'Souza forecasts an end to a broken, and broke, Olympic model.

Olympic hosts face escalating financial costs, and fights; there's threadbare confidence in the world's anti-doping agency; and athletes rarely get monetary reward for effort.

The Olympic motto - faster, higher, stronger - will soon be irrelevant, he said.

"The reality is, the fastest people in the world won't be at the Olympic Games, they will be at the Enhanced Games," D'Souza said.

"Athletes and broadcasters too recognise that ... who's going to want to compete at the old slow Olympics?"

D'Souza said the medical and scientific benefit is missed by critics labelling Enhanced Games, slated for late next year, a sporting freak show.

Specific medical regimes and athlete compensation will be detailed at an Apple-type launch likely later this year.

Magnussen will then begin a year-long doping program in a bid to break the world 50m freestyle record and collect a $US1 million ($A1.5 million) reward.

Athletes are promised world-best medical supervision: if they have a problem, so does a potential trillion dollar industry.

D'Souza expects a compelling talent roster though Magnussen is yet the only athlete in the world to publicly commit.

The 33-year-old has remained fit since retiring in 2019, is a former alpha male of the Australian swim team, media savvy, and a four-time Olympic medallist.

He fits the bill perfectly, D'Souza said.

"We get a lot of inbound interest," he said.

"There are some particular individuals with the right mixture of capability, charisma, television presence.

"We think of our approach more like Formula One than like the Olympics.

"The Olympics are how you run or swim a particular qualifying time, you get in.

"Versus Formula One, you have to be a good driver but you also have to be a good spokesperson as you represent the brand of Ferrari or McLaren.

"It's a bit of selection but it's also a bit of casting.

"Particularly those that we highlight as our flagship athletes, that can represent the social movement and the scientific movement that we're building and do that very well."

D'Souza went public with Enhanced Games 13 months ago with athletics, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics and combat sports on the program.

He envisioned facilities similar to US colleges, events live streamed.

But Enhanced Games' mastermind has been blown away by the response.

Cutting-edge investors have carved early slices.

Multi-billionaires, libertarian Peter Thiel, who has signed up to be cryogenically preserved when he dies, and venture capitalist and biotech pioneer Christian Angermayer, himself using an enhancement program, are among backers.

A Ridley Scott production company will film the journey of the Magnussen and other flagship athletes as global networks haggle for screening rights.

Nations are offering to host: they want not only the sporting event, but to be known as the home of the enhancements industry.

"The Silicon Valley is the capital of internet software and artificial intelligence; Taiwan is the capital of semiconductors; LA is the capital of film," D'Souza said.

"And the country that hosts Enhanced Games will become the capital of longevity and human enhancements, which I would argue will be one of the largest industries of all time.

"From an industrial policy level, countries now see the great potential of the Enhanced Games as a brand projection on a global scale."

But not Australia.

"Australia is terrible at building new technology industries," he said.

"The fact the Australian government is so tight with WADA and the AOC and the IOC will mean that they won't even be able to consider the opportunities with this multi-trillion dollar industry and we'll lose out on it."

Yet many Australians were among those inundating D'Souza's office with interest.

"I get nearly 1000 people a week approaching us and that's not just athletes, that's also job seekers and partners and sponsors ... a cold email saying I want to be involved in Enhanced Games," he said.

"A good third of those are from Australia.

"The reason why I'm so confident of our success is actually not in the athlete recruitment or the sponsorship or the funding, it's actually in the talent side of things.

"Our ability to recruit super talented people because of our mission to build super humanity, humans 2.0 - the world sees this.

"And smart people are saying 'wow, this is going to be a great company with an important mission that will change the world'."