Before we get to doping and psychedelics, arguably the most controversial man in sport is discussing how he came to own the largest triceratops skull ever discovered. And how he plans to install it in his London apartment.
So how much did you pay for it, I ask Christian Angermayer, the German billionaire who has made fortunes from biotech, bitcoin and psychedelics and now intends to do the same again using – and many believe abusing – sport. “Not a lot, because I find them.”
What personally? “I have bounty hunters who do that,” he replies. “I really don’t want to say what my costs are. But I also have a T-rex. And I don’t know where to put it, so I am going to sell it for around $40m.”
And the triceratops head? “It’s in London. I’m actually getting it put in my apartment. You need to come by. It’s a complete nightmare to insure it, and it needs a crane to get in, but it’s so spectacular.”
Incredibly, this is not even Angermayer’s most audacious plan. Because the dinosaur hunter believes he has unearthed fresh treasure in the dirt with his next project: the Enhanced Games. Critics have dubbed it the Steroid Olympics.
According to an Enhanced Games study, based on 36 of the 42 athletes who will compete this weekend, all but two will have taken performance-enhancing drugs banned by anti-doping authorities. Enhanced says that 91% are using testosterone, 79% human growth hormone, 41% EPO and 29% anabolic steroids.
It’s a concept that continues to shock and appal the sporting world. Angermayer, though, is convinced it represents the future.
His bet is that Sunday’s inaugural event, which features the 100m sprint, various swimming races and weightlifting events will be watched by millions of people, young and old, male and female, Republican and Democrat.
And he believes that many will, for the first time, start to think about spending $209 on testosterone cream to make them feel younger. Or $119 on GHK-Cu Copper, the peptide behind collagen, elasticity and real skin quality. Or one of the many other performance-enhancing drugs that are currently banned in elite sport but are available on the Enhanced website.
“I don’t understand why people limit medicine only for treating an illness,” Angermayer says. “Should we, as a society, think about how not to get sick in the first place? Why not use medically approved drugs, with a doctor, to help you to achieve your goal?”
Some of this is perfectly reasonable. As Angermayer points out, GLP-1s, which are synthetic peptides, have been a gamechanger when it comes to treating obesity. He also knows when it comes to health and anti-ageing treatments, what was once lurking in the shadows is about to become mainstream. But time and again he downplays or disputes what anti-doping authorities say are the dangers and potential consequences.
Most interviews start with a few niceties, a couple of looseners to warm things up. Not this one. Angermayer knows I’ve written a column expressing my scepticism with the Enhanced Games. Originally the Guardian’s application for accreditation to the event was rejected, although organisers later changed their minds. And so we get straight into it.
“I know I’m right,” Angermayer tells me. “I was looking forward to this. Only people who have not understood what we’re doing, or are profiting from the gravy train of the IOC don’t. We’re the good ones. I really believe that. I have a very strong conviction.”
But the World Anti-Doping Agency calls the Enhanced Games “a dangerous and irresponsible concept”, I reply, while Travis Tygart, the CEO of US Anti-Doping, says it is a “clown show”.
Angermayer’s eyes light up. “I want that quote everywhere,” he says. “I’m sending a heartfelt thank you because they saved us billions in marketing. LIV Golf invested $5bn and couldn’t get this popularity. We had a survey in November where we asked more than a thousand Americans have you heard about Enhanced Games? And 61% had already, while only 42% had heard about LIV after they spent $5bn.”
Angermayer is clearly bright. And the evidence of the past 25 years suggests he usually gets it right. But given he has various biotech businesses, and speaks to scientists and leading doctors, he must be aware of the risks involved in taking performance-enhancing drugs?
“These are medically good things, if done properly,” he insists. “You can abuse everything. You abuse people, you can abuse substances. But if it’s done properly with a doctor, it is good for people.”
“If these substances had anywhere near the risk all these goons are saying, we would see athletes drop dead.”
But a lot of young cyclists died in the 1990s and early noughties and many suspect EPO abuse was to blame, I point out. Angermayer pushes back, saying he isn’t sure that was the primary cause.
OK, so what about the East German athletes in the cold war, some of whom ended up suing a pharmaceutical company in 2005? “East Germany gave it to children, without their consent, without the knowledge, and it was not FDA-approved drugs,” he replies. “You can’t compare that.”
Angermayer’s argument essentially boils down to this: that any substance approved for human use by the US Food and Drug Administration should be allowed to be used in elite sport, with close medical supervision.
However Wada warns that FDA approved drugs, which include steroids and EPO, are often meant to be used in a medical setting. And when taken outside it there is the potential to cause serious harm, whether it is immediately or months or years later.
Yet in fairness to Angermayer, he does make several other points that hit home. When I suggest, for instance, that he is cynically using athletes as a Trojan horse to sell performance-enhancing drugs – he shrugs and says isn’t that what sport has always done?
“What about the IOC, who is selling burgers, sugar drinks and alcohol?” he adds. “That is the business model of sports. I didn’t invent it, I’d be proud if I did. But the business model of sports is using athletes to sell products. Some sell shitty scarves, some sell very dangerous drugs.”
By that, Angermayer is not referring to testosterone, HGH or EPO, or any of the drugs athletes will be taking in the Enhanced Games.
“Alcohol is, by the way, by far the number one riskiest drug. It’s worse than heroin. It’s worse than crack cocaine, it’s surely worse than any enhancement. And we allow it as a society.”
He doesn’t drink. “It’s the devil,” he says. “I think a lot of people believe alcohol is good because it’s socially accepted and freely sold.”
Angermayer also points out, not unreasonably, that far more athletes cheat than the 1% who are caught. Where we disagree is on the numbers.
He cites the 2011 Wada study that suggested that close to half of elite track and field athletes had used banned drugs in the preceding 12 months. I point out that Wada says there were a “number of flaws and limitations in the methodology” and it has “little or no value when assessing today’s prevalence numbers”. But then he stops me.
“Only from the UK, there were seven athletes in the Summer Games in Paris, who cheated to the gills,” Angermayer claims, without offering any supporting evidence. “Maybe it’s 30%. Maybe it’s 20%. But it’s not 1%.”
When it comes to enhancement, Angermayer certainly practises what he preaches. He says he has been taking testosterone replacement therapy since he was 30, and now takes 250mg per week. Enhanced Games athletes, he says, are taking more like 80-200mg because they are younger and don’t need as much.
More recently Angemayer has also started taking tesamorelin, a peptide which stimulates the pituitary gland to produce and release natural growth hormone – but is only approved by the FDA for treating HIV-associated lipodystrophy.
“We have decade-long studies,” he says of testosterone. “I am the biggest hypochondriac of all. It would be crazy if I injected myself with stuff which had a risk.”
“There is an urban legend that an increased amount of human growth hormones could cause cancer. But the great thing is I have maybe one of the best scientific departments at my disposal and I couldn’t find anything. There’s not a single study in the world. It’s in fact the opposite. A moderate increase in human growth hormones in people older than 30, is actually very healthy because your immune system goes up.”
This, to put it mildly, is not Wada’s view. It says that human growth hormone can trigger diabetes, heart problems, and abnormal growth in organs and bones.
Part of Angermayer’s conviction that he is right comes from his longtime advocacy for using psychedelics to help mental health and depression. That used to be a fringe position. Now it is mainstream. Our time is nearly up. Before I go I tell him that some people reading this will think he is a super villain, while others will think that he’s a pioneer. So how does he see himself?
“You need to make a judgment,” Angermayer replies. “But I can tell you one thing, I’m definitely not a super villain, for one reason: I brought back psychedelics after they were banned and marginalised. Their whole message is it’s all about love and being not a dick? So I don’t think I’m a super villain.”
Angermayer also wants to make another thing clear: the Enhanced Games is here to stay. The next edition, he suggests, might even involve beloved sports stars in their 40s and 50s competing to see if they could come close to their old personal bests while enhanced.
It sounds preposterous to me. And, sensing my scepticism, we end with a sporting bet. I say the Enhanced Games won’t last five years. He insists it will be thriving.
History suggests the man who pays bounty hunters to find dinosaurs will collect. Either way, try picking the bones out of that.
