James Magnussen willing to swim at the ‘Enhanced Games’
James Magnussen is the first top Australian athlete to accept an invitation to the Enhanced Games, an event designed to test performance-enhancing drugs and help billionaires fight ageing.
Former champion swimmer James Magnussen has accepted the challenge to compete for a $1.5 million bounty in the Enhanced Games – which will allow performance enhancing drugs.
Magnussen has confirmed he will undertake a supplements programs to try and break the world record in the 50 metre freestyle.
If he does he will land a USD$1million prize.
Magnussen laid down the challenge to Enhanced Games founder Aron D’Souza who told Magnussen that he would guarantee the seven figure prize.
“I want to approach this the right way, I want to go to America, I want to get the right advice and take the right supplements, Magnussen said on SEN. “I don’t know much about that world so I want to do my research and have the right team behind me and with the help of Aron, I’d like to document it through video form. Show how it can be done safely, properly and create an athlete we haven’t seen before.”
D’Souza welcomed the Magnussen news and confirmed he would be paid the giant bounty if he broke a world record at their event.
He said the same seven-figure cheque would be on offer for someone to break Usain Bolt’s 100m world record.
“James Magnussen is one of my sporting heroes. Watching him compete as a natural athlete at the 2012 London Olympics inspired me. Today, he inspires me as one of the first sporting heroes of science. Magnussen has the potential to show us what the human body, improved through science, is truly capable of,” D’Souza said.
“Whilst we have not spoken with James yet, we wish to publicly confirm the prize money that will inspire him and many other Olympic heroes to join the Enhanced Movement.”
“I do not doubt that James Magnussen, so known for his tenacity, determination and giant 6 foot 7 inches frame, can break swimming’s most important world record.
“We will write James Magnussen a one million dollar cheque for breaking the 50-metre Freestyle world record at the Enhanced Games.
“There will be multiple million dollar prizes at the first Enhanced Games.
“The first enhanced athlete to publicly break Usain Bolt’s world record will also get at least one million US dollars.”
UNFAIR, UNSAFE – THE DOPING GAMES AIMED TO HELP BILLIONAIRES LIVE LONGER
Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel is throwing his financial muscle behind an “Olympics on steroids” — whose organiser boasts that athletes will dope “out in the open and honestly.”
Thiel, who made his fortune as an early investor in tech startups like PayPal and Facebook, is backing the Enhanced Games, which will actively encourage athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs.
The venture — aimed at aiding research into nutritional supplements and biohacks that push the boundaries of human performance — is the brainchild of Dr. Aron D’Souza, a lawyer by training who famously conceived Thiel’s lawsuit against Gawker Media.
He plans to provide more details on April 17 and promote the controversial concept in Paris during the Summer Olympics, which begin in July.
He’s the fastest man in the world and a proud enhanced athlete. He has broken Usain Bolt’s world record. The new Olympics are here, backed by VCs Christian Angermayer and Peter Thiel, where performance enhancements are allowed. https://t.co/OydUh3J6uwpic.twitter.com/P0zKpTzA4T
— Enhanced Games (@enhanced_games) January 31, 2024
Thiel is among several high-profile venture capitalists who have backed the project, including billionaire Christian Angermayer of Apeiron Investment Group and Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
D’Souza would not reveal how much money was raised, telling The Post it was in the “high single-digit millions” — a sum that is “enough to produce the first games.”
D’Souza said that Enhanced Games are negotiating with several host cities “that have requisite infrastructure” though he declined to specify which venue will host the inaugural competition, which he expects to get underway by the middle of next year.
The competition will feature five events — swimming, gymnastics, weightlifting, track and field, and combat — and will be held once a year at already-existing venues.
He told The Post that the idea behind Enhanced Games is to allow athletes to use whatever substances they wish “out in the open and honestly” — unlike at the Olympics, where “44% of Olympians admit to using banned substance while only 1% get caught.”
“My body, my choice, your body, your choice,” D’Souza told The Post when asked about the philosophy behind allowing athletes to juice.
“Individuals should be able to make choices about your body and no one — whether it’s a sports federation or the government — should be able to tell them what to do about it,” he said.
He said that the events are open to any athletes — current and former professionals and amateurs — and that allowing them to enhance their performance with substances will enable researchers to get a better idea of what technologies are out there that can boost longevity and “healthy ageing.”
“We think that this will create conditions by which we will get a much larger data pool of athletes and individuals who are aspiring to self improvement through science,” D’Souza said.
He said that the data would be “very useful to determining compounds and therapies to extending human life.”
D’Souza predicted that Enhanced Games would do for anti-ageing what “ChatGPT did for AI.”
The 56-year-old Thiel is among several Silicon Valley moguls who have invested millions in funding research aimed at helping people live longer.
Thiel himself takes human growth hormone to help maintain muscle mass as well as anti-diabetes drug metformin, which has grown popular in the anti-ageing community.
Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the Russian anti-doping whistleblower who exposed the country’s state-sponsored doping program, called the idea a “danger to health, to sport.”
Anna Meares, a former Olympic gold medallist who serves as Australia’s Olympic chef de mission for the Paris Summer Games, told The Guardian: “It’s a joke, to be honest.
“Unfair, unsafe — I just don’t think this is the right way to go about sport,” she said.
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