Enhanced Games file $800M lawsuit towards critics

The startup Olympic-style sports activities pageant promising no drug testing filed an $800 million antitrust lawsuit towards its detractors Wednesday for what it claims is an unlawful marketing campaign to make athletes boycott its occasion.

The Enhanced Games filed the lawsuit in federal court docket in New York, naming World Aquatics, USA Swimming and the World Anti-Doping Agency as defendants. They are in search of damages and injunctive aid to cease what they are saying is the defendants’ unlawful marketing campaign.

The lawsuit keys on a rule adopted by Switzerland-based World Aquatics earlier this yr that threatens to banish athletes who compete in “sporting events that embrace the use of scientific advancements or other practices that may include prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Enhanced Games president Aron D’Souza insisted the lawsuit was not a publicity stunt however fairly an try and treatment “the real damage that’s being done” to swimmers and different athletes who’re dissuaded from competing.

None of the defendants instantly returned messages left by The Associated Press in search of remark. WADA has criticized the concept first touted in 2023 as harmful and irresponsible.

Thus far, the Enhanced Games have signed 5 athletes to compete in Las Vegas in May with competitions in observe, swimming and weightlifting providing $500,000 first prizes.

D’Souza — who helped steer billionaire Peter Thiel to bankroll Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit towards Gawker that resulted in a $140 million verdict — stated “natural” athletes who compete at world championships and Olympics are welcome to check themselves on the Enhanced Games, and he presumes the prize cash could be tempting.

“But until this issue is resolved, it’s causing irreparable harm to our ability to sign athletes,” he stated. “Athletes who are both ‘natural’ and ‘enhanced’ can compete at the games. That’s part of the narrative that makes this interesting. Can a ‘natural’ athlete beat an ‘enhanced’ athlete?”

The Enhanced Games painting themselves as pushing the bounds of human capacity whereas utilizing science to observe athletes’ consumption with out punishing them for taking medicine which are banned below the world anti-doping code.