Behind the Enhanced Games is Australian lawyer and entrepreneur Aron D’Souza, who graduated from Oxford and is himself a former top-level cyclist. He does not hide his distrust of the authorities of professional sport, which he describes as ” corrupt bureaucracy “To defend his project, he cites a study carried out in 2011 by the World Anti-Doping Agency on the sidelines of the World Athletics Championships according to which 43.6% of professional athletes admitted to having already used performance-enhancing techniques using substances banned by WADA. Rather than lying, why not legalize these practices? “, points out Aron D’Souza, who prefers the term ” augmented athlete ” to that of “doped” or “cheat”. For ethical reasons as well as health reasons, retorts Gaëtan Blouin, national coordinator of combined events for the French Athletics Federation: ” In addition to being totally contrary to the values of sport, doping is a practice that endangers the health of athletes. “, he recalls. And to point out the number of ” premature death, testicular cancer or serious illnesses » having affected doped athletes in the past.
A medical warning that should not make us forget that the use of shortcuts by athletes to improve their performance is a practice as old as the first Olympics. Star of the Panhellenic Games, the athlete Milo of Croton claimed his consumption of pork, which was supposed to give him strength and robustness. And the writings of the orator Philostratus relate that herbal decoctions and beverages, such as coca leaf, ginseng or mead alcohol were commonly used by champions in order to prove themselves worthy of the Olympic motto: ” Faster Higher Stronger » (“Further, higher, stronger”).
« Dopage low-cost »
Referred to on CNN as ” clownish and dangerous farce » by the president of the American Anti-Doping Agency, were the Enhanced Games so brutally received by the main parties concerned? 900 athletes have already responded to Aron D’Souza’s call, a figure that is impossible to verify. To date, in any case, only the Australian swimmer James Magnussen, double world champion and silver medalist in the 100-meter freestyle at the London Olympics in 2012, has reacted publicly, saying he is ready to take up the challenge even though he has been retired from the pools since 2019. His driving force? Money. If he manages to break the world record for the 50-meter freestyle (20.91 seconds), held since 2009 by the Brazilian César Cielo, Aron D’Souza and his team have promised him a check for a million dollars. Have the main sports records become so capped and unbeatable that we would have to resort to doping in order to hope to surpass them? Historian Pascal Charroin, a lecturer in the sports and athletics department at the University of Saint-Étienne, dismisses the argument: ” Major sports federations focus on creativity. By multiplying the number of disciplines and types of records (indoor or outdoor, over 25 or 50 metres), they have created sufficient scope to excel without athletes resorting to unknown forms of doping. »
