'The Enhanced Games,' in Which You Get to Use Whatever PEDs You Want, is Close to Becoming a Reality at Long Last
"In response to what its sponsors claim is 'an idea whose time has come,' The All Drug Olympics opened today in Bogota, Columbia." - Saturday Night Live, 1988
At a time when I'll argue SNL reached it's absolute peak - with Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon and Dennis Miller on Weekend Update all at the height of their powers - they came up with this, one of their most legendary sketches.
And since then, not a moment has gone by when the issue of doping in sports has come up without those of us who saw this bit live haven't thought of it. Through the MLB Steroid Era. Congressional hearings into the MLB Steroid Era. Lance Armstrong. Barry Bonds. Roger Clemens. Dozens of NFL players failing tests. And of course the various Olympic "scandals." Bring up the topic and the hard drive in the back of my brain opens the folder where it saved, "His trainer told me he's taken anabolic steroids, Nyquil, Darvon, novocaine, and some sort of fish paralyzer. ... All of this is, of course, perfectly legal here at the All Drug Olympics." Just before the weightlifter's arms detach at the shoulder. Classic comedy.
Well, it's taken 36 years, but it seems the visionaries in the SNL writer's room will finally get to see their dreams realized. Thanks to the pioneering work being done by the good people at the Enhanced Games, who have had enough of these disappointing, humdrum, and scatological Paris Olympics:
... and are striving to do something much more noble. Which is to use modern science to live up to the Olympic ideal of "Faster, Higher, Stronger." Without limits:
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Source (paywall) - An expert on the ground floor of some of anti-doping’s most broad-reaching advances says the recently proposed idea of the Enhanced Games — an Olympic-style sports competition with reduced doping oversight — makes sense given the recurring drug-fighting failures of the current Olympic system.
Michael Ashenden, a fierce critic of Lance Armstrong who played key roles in the creation of a test for the blood-boosting drug Erythropoietin (EPO) and the athlete blood passport system that is one of anti-doping’s best tools, wrote a paper called “Not So Fast,” which he allowed The Associated Press to report on before he published it online Tuesday. …
Last year, [founder Aron] D’Souza introduced the concept of the Enhanced Games to challenge systems at the Olympics that, according to the organization’s website, “aren’t as ‘drug-free’ as many would claim them to be.”
He’s offering six-figure base salaries for “top-tier” athletes willing to compete and a $1 million bonus for the first sprinter to break the 100-meter world record or swimmer who breaks the record in the 50-meter freestyle. …
In an interview with AP, D’Souza compared the current trajectory of drug use in the Olympics to their now-outdated fealty to pure amateurism at the Games.
“Today, we don’t even view amateurism as an issue,” he said. “And it’s because professional athletes are just a lot better than amateur athletes. I think the same is going to be true of enhanced athletes. Enhanced athletes will be better than natural athletes. So, when I see headline after headline, year after year, scandal after scandal, it’s an indictment on a system that’s no longer fit for purpose.” …
“There is no moral high ground here,” Ashenden writes of the Olympics’ long-standing quest to promote fair play as part of its core mission.
Hear, hear! Bravo! Bravissimo!
This is how you give the public what they want. This is how you put asses in seats and eyeballs on screens. By letting athletes off the anti-doping leash. By freeing them up to test the limits of human physiology, strength, speed, stamina, and endurance. Unencumbered by the restrictions put on them by the Hall Monitors of this world.
Read again what Michael Ashenden has to say. This guy was one of the biggest purists in the world on this issue. He relentlessly dogged the biggest dopers in the world for years. And even he agrees this is the path forward. And I give all the credit to D'Souza for that analogy to so-called "amateur" sports, which was the biggest hypocrisy ever conceived. Free market nations were being forced to send their less accomplished athletes to compete against the very best Socialist countries could find. So you had the college kids from the 1980 Miracle team going up against the Soviet "Red Army" team who had never held a rifle in their lives. Or Figure Skater Debbie Thomas trying to compete while going through medical school against Katerina Witt, who never saw the inside of an East German factory or did anything for work except skate for her country, promote Marxist ideals, and create global boners:
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We corrected all that once we admitted what bullshit it was. Trying to keep sports free of performance enhancers is every bit as wrongheaded and phony. It puts the few who aren't doping at a disadvantage to the very, very many who do. The Olympics becomes a test, not of who the best athletes are, but who has the best masking agents. And in doing so, takes all the fun out of sports in general. Think about it. When was the last time you actually enjoyed a conversation about who should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame? The PED Puritans always turn it into a referendum on who doped, when the doped, and how much they doped, and suck all the air out of the room in the process. It's the same with the Summer and Winter Games every two years.
So fuck it. We're finally at that moment in history. When the only rule should be no rule at all. No tests. No cycling on and off. Just bring those sweet, sweet "Better living through chemistry" results. And make a cool million for your troubles.
If you're one of those people saying, "Old Balls, you brilliant, witty Silver Fox. What about the athletes? We know all too well how bad PEDs can be for the long term health of these people." Yes, I do. But to use that as an excuse to keep perpetuating this failed model is to be ignorant of history. Since when have young, ambitious people not been willing to trade years off their life for fame, fortune and glory in the short term? Gladiators' swords were a lot more deadly than Erythropoietin. But kids worshiped them and every woman in Rome wanted to bone them. Same with Medieval knights and their jousting lancers. Boxers, both bare-knuckled and gloved. In 1905, 18 Americans died playing college football, and the sport continued to grow. And to take it out of the realm in sports for a second, just consider "The 27 Club" of dead rock stars. Now tell me someone wouldn't take their changes with the steroids for a chance at the 100-meter record, a million bucks, and eternal glory.
So let's do it, already. Dope these people up like Triple Crown thoroughbreds and let's see what the human body is capable of with an unlimited amount of modern chemistry. The time that actually came in 1988 has finally come.