Would legal doping change the Olympics?
The impact would be smaller—and worse—than proponents of drug-taking claim
TRYING TO RID elite sport of drug cheats is an expensive and often thankless task. Competition organisers can never be sure that an event is clean: retests of samples from the Beijing and London games led to more than 100 medallists being disqualified. A small minority—including Aron D’Souza, an Australian businessman—believe it is time to lift the ban and make drug-taking a legitimate means to boost performance. Mr D’Souza plans to hold a doped competition, dubbed the Enhanced Games, in 2025. Most athletes have dismissed his plan as absurd and dangerous. But he believes that doped competitors would beat plenty of official world records. Is that true?
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