The “steroid Olympics” has clinched a “double-digit” million-dollar money infusion from traders led by Donald Trump Jr. because the controversial sporting occasion pursues an American debut, The Submit has realized.
The funding spherical closed final week, Australian businessman Aron D’Souza, president of the Enhanced Video games, advised The Submit throughout a Monday interview. He declined to offer extra particulars on the fundraising.
“Getting the Trump name behind the Enhanced Games was a monumental effort,” D’Souza advised The Submit. “This is now a very American project.”
The primary Enhanced Video games will embody occasions in monitor, swimming, weight lifting, “combat” and gymnastics, and can seemingly happen later this 12 months in a “warm” US metropolis “conducive to winter months,” D’Souza stated.
“We wouldn’t have hosted the games in the United States if Biden was elected,” he stated, noting the corporate was beforehand contemplating host cities abroad.
“Silicon Valley CEOs were by and large all Democrats until this election, and it was because of the Biden administration’s deep, deep antagonism towards innovation and technology,” D’Souza continued, particularly calling out the Democrat’s harsh stance on cryptocurrency.
The objective of the video games – additionally backed by traders like Peter Thiel and Christian Angermayer – is to interrupt world information by permitting athletes to dope up with nearly any legally accessible performance-enhancing medicine, whereas paying them handsomely.
The Enhanced Video games would require medical screenings, together with cardiac and mind imaging and coronary heart rhythm monitoring, in line with its web site.
The Worldwide Olympic Committee “are legacy incumbents that have a giant, multi-billion dollar, century-long monopoly and they’re afraid of competition,” D’Souza stated. “The IOC has never had competition, and they’re very threatened by that.”
D’Souza stated he expects the Enhanced Video games to align higher with the Trump administration – significantly the brand new secretary of Well being and Human Providers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The anti-vaccine politician, who survived a contentious nomination course of, has admitted to utilizing testosterone alternative remedy.
“He’s in his 70s and he’s doing pull-ups and going to the gym every day in a way that Joe Biden never could,” D’Souza stated.
Alongside Don Jr., the Enhanced Video games has vital star investor energy – discovering backers in crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan and Angermayer, a German billionaire with investments in biotech and psychedelics.
Thiel, enterprise capitalist billionaire and co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Applied sciences, is one other investor with ties to the White Home.
Thiel confronted controversy after he funded the takedown of gossip information website Gawker, bankrolling wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit towards the media firm over his leaked intercourse tape. D’Souza led the litigation.
D’Souza, who has invested thousands and thousands within the mission and admitted to utilizing performance-enhancing medicine himself, argued that alcohol is a much more damaging substance, citing a 15-year-old examine.
Whereas his video games entice athletes to make use of medicine with hefty prizes — a $1 million bag for record-breakers in monitor and swim occasions, and a five- or six-figure upfront cost to contributors — the Olympics equally push harmful substances, he stated.
“The two drugs…are fast food and processed food, and those have done more damage to public health than any other substance in the totality of human history,” he stated, referencing McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, two of Staff USA’s longest-serving sponsors.
Only one athlete to this point, retired Australian Olympic swimmer James Magnussen, has publicly signaled his curiosity in collaborating after the group provided to pay him $1.5 million if he can shatter the 50 meter freestyle document.
“If they put up $1m for the 50 freestyle world record, I will come on board as their first athlete,” he advised a sports activities podcast earlier this 12 months.
“I’ll juice to the gills and I’ll break it in six months,” he added.
