‘I want to see 60-year-olds breaking world records’: Welcome to the Olympics with NO drug testing

Seb Coe says ‘it’s a joke, unfair, and unsafe’. The head of US anti-doping calls it ‘a dangerous clown show’. Lawrence Ostlere talks to Dr Aron D’Souza, the Australian lawyer who wants to launch the Enhanced Games, a controversial Olympic-style mega-event in which doping is not just allowed but actively encouraged...

Sprinter Ben Johnson winning gold in the infamous ‘dirtiest race in history’, the 1988 Olympic 100m final in Seoul (Reuters)

On his fifth day at Oxford University, Australian law student Aron D’Souza attended a talk by Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal. Afterwards, D’Souza showed him around campus. As they chatted about Thiel’s business, D’Souza asked him a question: what is the biggest problem you face?

Thiel replied with a litany of problems, but the top of the pile was the unwanted press he was getting from a media outlet called Gawker, which had outed him as gay. Thiel didn’t want the attention of taking Gawker to court, but D’Souza had another, more cost-effective idea: what if Thiel bankrolled someone else’s lawsuit?

They met for dinner in Paris a few months later, where D’Souza presented his plan of attack. The 24-year-old student had never had a serious job but he made a compelling pitch, and he was hired. Thiel went on to wage a proxy war, secretly funding the wrestler Hulk Hogan, who had his own score to settle with Gawker over a sex tape made public. Five years later, Hogan won $140m in damages and Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy.