Donald Trump’s son has made a multi-million dollar investment in the Enhanced Games, an upcoming Olympic-style competition where athletes will be allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs.
The investment round was co-led by Donald Trump Jr’s 1789 Capital, a VC fund which focuses on backing conservative companies, according to a press release issued on Thursday.
Announced in 2023 by London-based founder Aron D’Souza, the Enhanced Games — dubbed the “steroid Olympics” by critics — will allow athletes to take any performance-enhancing substances they like, from anabolic steroids to growth hormones and testosterone replacement therapy.
“For over 100 years, elites in charge of global sports have stifled innovation, crushed individual greatness, and refused to let athletes push the limits of what’s possible. That ends now,” Trump Jr. said.
“The Enhanced Games represent the future — real competition, real freedom, and real records being smashed.”
The competition will focus on a limited number of single-person events in the areas of track, swimming and weightlifting. The Enhanced Games says athletes will have medical supervision.
It’s planned to take place in mid-2026 in the US, the Enhanced Games tells Sifted.
It’s a delay of a year from the initial date set when the company announced a “single digit million-dollar” round from Peter Thiel and Christian Angermayer in January last year.
Back then D’Souza said the company would look to tap pharmaceutical companies for sponsorship, and is in discussions with a number of broadcasters around the world.
The event has been widely criticised by anti-doping agencies around the world, which some have labelled as “dangerous”.
D’Souza called it a “real, honest and open celebration of scientific innovation”, when speaking to Sifted in January last year.
“44% [of athletes] admit to using banned performance-enhancing substances,” D’Souza tells Sifted. “Instead of lying, let’s do this all out in the open.”
While Trump Jr. doesn’t hold an official role in the US government, he’s seen as a close advisor of Trump Sr. The Biden administration previously said it had “deep concern” about the Enhanced Games.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/donald-trump-son-enhanced-games-news/
