Here’s one article from ESPN.
I suppose something like this was bound to happen eventually, but I’m none the less disappointed to see it actually happen. I’m not surprised by some of the names associated with the project, including Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. The only good thing to come out of this will be that at least some of the PED users will be out in the open and presumably will not be allowed to participate in any legitimate sporting competitions going forward.
I thought Olympic-style sports(and others)were already infused with PEDs.
Cool. I want to see athletes exceeding the physical structure of their bodies. Weightlifters ripping their arms off, bone and sinew flying everywhere. Like that scene in Ghost in the Shell where Kusanagi rips the spider tank open.
The rules on PEDs feel artificial and puritanical to me. It’s not as if high-level sports are overly fastidious about the health and safety of the athletes in other ways.
I’d like to see a tier of sports that did impose health rules, but they should be based on medical understanding of actual dangers, not “it’s a modern drug”.
That being said, i doubt I’ll want to watch this event.
The obligatory All-Drug Olympics.
Soon to be followed by the Robosaurus Olympics where the mauling is performed by battle droids, brought to you by Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator.
Stranger
and here’s the obligatory meme that’s been floating around for 5+ years now…
They’re not starting in May 2026. They’re starting next year. This works the same way as “free beer tomorrow”, or Trump’s “two weeks”.
If they ever actually did this, there’d be a world of legal troubles, both criminal and civil, and they’d go bankrupt on lawyers’ fees and fines. But by continually keeping it “next year”, they can avoid that, while still bilking any investors unethical enough to be interested.
“Sorry, I know you dumped millions of bucks into this, but it turns out that drugs are illegal, so we’ll just have to keep your money instead.”
Are ELECTROLYTES considered a PED? How would we even know? No one knows what they do.
What? Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t there plenty of PED types that aren’t controlled substances? It’s not like they’re planning to field athletes on meth or speed.
…That’s 2028, if this event is successful financially.
Would I watch? Sure, why the hell not. I watch sailboat racing, beach volleyball, cornhole, gymnastics, figure skating, Formula E, and competitive cheerleading, so who am I to turn up my nose at the Destroy Your Health And Reputation Olympics. As an added bonus, millions of fans can see in real time the reasons you shouldn’t put insane crap like HGH into your body other than “it’s illegal”.
My issue is that the idea has been put forward by right-wingers, and a right winger who can make anything that works is about as realistic as the Giant Purple Snorklewacker taking over as host of Lego Masters. Unless this bunch is willing to swallow a lot of pride and reach way across the isle to hire a lot of competent non-Neanderthals who understand how to make a successful big sporting event, I expect this to implode harder than the AAF.
On a more basic level, do these guys have anything besides words? I recall how this one random yahoo who never accomplished a damn thing in his life proposed the “All American Basketball Association” (Remember that one?), and it very predictably never moved a micron past the whiny rant stage. Seriously, all the right-wing Great Ideas that were empty bluster beginning, middle, and end could fill the Library of Alexandria. I’d have to see, at the absolute bare minimum 1. a tentative list of events, 2. a tentative list of athletes, 3. a tentative list of officials, 4. a tentative list of venues, 5. a tentative list of sponsors, 6. a tentative schedule, 7. a prize structure, 8. questions about the inevitable controversies being openly addressed and answered, and 9. a lot of people outside the conservative bubble making noise about this new event before I could start taking it seriously.