Major Sports Announcement!

Look, I know. I hate it, too, but the Double O will lose its accreditation if we don't run a sports feature once a year. Fear not. We're following a story that will be of interest to all our readers.

I'm willing to bet that you, a member of the Occasional Ostrich target audience, have given up your dream of athletic greatness. Like me, you have an annoying little voice in your ear when you watch the Olympics or the NBA Finals (or the Golf Channel at 2 am, or however sports invade your bliss) that says, "There's no way I could do that."

The voice is wrong. You can. You just need the right circumstance. A perfectly real circumstance called the Enhanced Games, scheduled for next May in Las Vegas.

Put yourself in the soaking wet shoes of Kristian Gkolomeev, a four-time Olympic swimmer whose hopes of gold (or silver or bronze) were dashed each time by "elite" swimmers, people no better than him, except for being faster. Gkolomeev is 31 now, and "should be retired" but, guess what—he just broke the gosh-darn world record in the 50 meter freestyle (unofficially.)

How did he do it? By believing in science. And wearing a banned swimsuit. And taking drugs. Which drugs? He can't tell us, or hadn't you heard of mother-freaking HIPPA?

See, the Olympics are "a representation of the past," or so says Enhanced Games founder Aron D'Sousa. "They have this amateurish, natural ethos that is run by a bunch of European aristocrats. The Enhanced Games are very different. They're run by capitalists, who believe in the future, believe in science and technology."

Yes! Finally! Someone with the stones to pull those cheese-eating, progress-hating, aristo-socialist gatekeepers down from their pillars, with their sissified notions of purity, fairness, and safety. Are we not human beings? Can we not improve ourselves, enhance ourselves? With judicious use of performance-enhancing technology and medicine, Kristian Gkolomeev can be the winner he deserves to be. Any of us could!

"Once the world realizes that," said D'Souza, "I think everyone is going to want it. Every middle-aged guy who once played competitive sport and is now suffering from back pain is going to say, 'What is he on and how do I get it?'"

Now, I hate to be a skeptic, but I do foresee one flaw. Granted, I'm a new tycoon, a latecomer to the capitalist iconoclass, but I fear D'Souza's instincts may be failing him. Will Americans pay to watch a heat of second-rate sprinters explode from their starting blocks, bristling with amphetamines? Of course! Who wouldn't! But he's missing a bigger opportunity, another direction that would earn ungodly sums of money. If D'Souza can't see it, then there's cash on the table for a true visionary. So...

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: I, global media capitalist Tom George, proudly announce a sporting event like the world has never seen! Premiering in May 2026, somewhere else in Las Vegas (location TBD), watch top-tier athletes go head-to-head in a spectacle of human competition, the international DIMINISHED GAMES!

You think it's fun to watch professional athletes soar to bovine heights of hormone-fueled glory? It will be fifty times more fun to watch them stumble around like ninnies, brought down to our level for once in their fate-kiss'd lives. Trust me on this, or google 'Japanese binocular soccer'.

While we haven't finalized the rules, you can count on the Diminished Games for unmissable events such as—

• Swimming: DG will supply all swimsuits. Michelin Man for freestyle events, Kool-Aid Man for butterfly.
• Wrestling: Wrestlers flip a coin before the match. Heads, they wrestle old-school, nude with oil. Tails, they put on velcro singlets.
• Relay: The baton is a 40-pound tungsten rod. Runners are not forewarned.
• Javelin: Takes place on the archery range, with dart boards.
• Archery: Takes place on the shot-put field. Spin, spin, fire.
• Ice hockey and skateboarding: Standard rules, but they swap footwear.
• Basketball: Players must carry their average daily income in their pockets, in quarters.
• Surfing: Just normal surfing, but, get this, the surfers are stoned. Like super baked.
• Soccer: All players have a puppy on a leash. Goalkeepers carry their dog in a backpack.
• Climbing: Wall is underwater, upside down. Competitors wear SCUBA and balloons.
• Baseball: Batters are fitted with portable EEG, must experience human empathy before passing each base.

Pay-per-view tickets are half-price now! Let's show those enhancement bros some real competition.