On September 24, 1988, the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson placed first in the 100-metre dash, setting a new world record at the Seoul Olympics. Thirty million Canadians went wild for the born-in-Jamaica runner who was one of ours.
We’re #1!
Seventy-two hours later Johnson was disqualified for using the banned steroid stanozolol. Thirty million Canadians were crushed. This born-in-Jamaica runner was one of theirs. We’re #171!
A Grade 3 student could tell you why we were bereft:
Cheating is bad. A drug that gives you an unfair advantage corrupts the whole competition. Cheating on an exam cheats everyone. If people know the bid is rigged, they won’t enter. Just this week, Norwegian ski jumpers were caught manipulating their ski suits. Norway!
It’s embarrassing to have to put this on paper. Everyone knows cheating is bad.
But that may change. Cheating is about to enter a Golden Age, not just politically where Donald Trump’s example shines darkness on so many new corners, but in sports as well.
The Enhanced Games is the anti-Olympics. It claims the lack of banned substances has held back countless athletic records, and that far from being something to be shamed, it’s to be proclaimed.
By having a Games that encourages taking drugs to enhance your performance, the biggest beneficiary will be science and human performance. “…redefining human potential – showcasing what we can truly achieve and inspire the evolution of humanity.”
Ah yes, the old evolution of humanity argument.
The Enhanced Games were founded by Australian businessman Aron D’Souza.He believes: “Athletes are adults … and they have a right to do with their body what they wish – my body, my choice; your body, your choice…And no government, no paternalistic sports federation, should be making those decisions for athletes – particularly around products that are FDA regulated and approved.”
Cocaine and heroin will not be allowed.
In 2023, CNN said it was an open question whether the Games would ever take place.
But then Donald Trump won the Presidency.
Last month, his son Donald Jr’s venture capital fund took part in a funding round, saying: “This is about excellence, innovation and American dominance on the world stage — something the MAGA movement is all about.”
The Games are set to launch later this year with athletics, aquatics and strength events. The plan is that they be annual and held at venues around the US and, in years to come, the world. They will be entirely privately funded.
As D’Souza told The Financial Times last week: “The world is beginning to see that we have a right, we may even have a duty, to become enhanced…And it’s not scary. It’s not cheating, it’s not breaking the rules, it’s just inventing a new set of rules.”
Ah yes, the new set of rules argument.
But with all of this freedom, what will we do to feel ashamed anymore?
Meanwhile…
1. The winners of the memoir-writing contest are…Two weeks ago, we invited you to submit a personal true story of no more than 100 words. We received more than 50 of them. There were tales of wonderful love, terrible abuse, joyous times and aching loss. You can read them all here.
The Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners were chosen for their surprising frankness, felicity of expression, depth of feeling and lack of exclamation marks!
The judges were me; my colleague Alex Brown; and my wife and two-time author Jean Marmoreo. What amazed us all was that many of you wrote forbidden tales, the kind that used to be confessed only on a deathbed. There is hope for the power of revelation yet.
The Bronze winner is David Sobel.
I stared at Boris, sitting across the table, my new Russian ‘friend’. Disco pulsed faintly. There was a pistol in his hand. “I should probably kill you.” He ordered two more shots of vodka and offered me a stogie. “What else do you like, besides my wife?” “I had no idea, Boris,” I choked, tears forming. He smirked. I paused, staring at him. “I like…Guy Lafleur and the Montreal Canadiens,” I confessed, haltingly. Boris grinned. “Great team. The Flower!” he boomed. “I won’t kill you.” And so hockey saved my life in a visit to Moscow in 1993.
The Silver winner is Anonymous.
48 years later and it’s burned in my visions – it recurs in my dreams. I remember so little of my childhood but the trauma holds. Was it Buddha or some other genius who had their shit together who said that hating someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick. And yet, my brain and my body hold on to the hate. A few moments that last a lifetime; moments that are nothing in the scheme of a lifetime. It didn’t happen to me; it happened to my body. Or so therapists have told me.
And the Gold Winner, who is now the proud possessor of quiet pride in a job well done, is…[drum roll here]…Shari Austin.
What can’t you do? At 80, 5 years into her dementia, mom explained why she couldn’t join the chair exercise group in her long-term care facility. “I can’t raise my arms above my head like everyone else”, she said, raising her arms to the ceiling to demonstrate. A moment of laughter (mine), then reflection. Trapped in a career I loved but was killing me, in a marriage that had lasted decades too long, in my relentless need for perfection and achievement. I suddenly wasn’t. A final, unintended gift.
Thank you to all the entrants. We plan to run a second writing contest later in the spring.
2. Where are pro hockey players born? The Prairies and the Iron Range in Minnesota. But if you’re really into ice-dipping, you can try Dimensions in the Algonquin Highlands, and the annual Polar Plunge to raise funds for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Here’s former Minister of the Environment, Catherine McKenna, plunging into Meech Lake. Fortunately the Polar Plunge took place last weekend, but you can still contribute. Oh, and here’s a Toronto woman who’s taken a cold plunge in Lake Ontario every day for 1,500 days.
3. Breaking up is hard to do. So here’s how to do it. Losing weight is hard to do. Here’s how to do that. Unpacking personal trauma is especially hard. Here’s how to do that. And here’s how to avoid where the worst people work.
4. Why I love Brit actors. Because they endure. Like Ralph Fiennes. And James Bond. Yes, yes, he’s a role, not an actor. But look who Bond has spawned. And Damian Lewis, here as Marc Antony in Julius Caesar whose plot is scarily timely these days. And the ill-advised Bill Nighy.
5. Menopause. It’s not an illness, it’s a condition. Books: some can make you laugh out loud. Parking: it doesn’t need us any more. Bibliomania: it’s now an illness. Cancer: liquid biopsies offer a new way to see it. Shipwrecks: a big one found this week in Lake Superior.
6. What if there was a car…for men only? Or a country where… women ran things…Or a single app…that houses all your travel details? Or an even more ominous story…about Tesla than its stock price?
7. The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report. It’s never looked like much in the 60 years CEO Warren Buffett has written it. But its words are a model of clarity in a form of business writing plagued by sludge, virtue-signalling and laughable truths, like “negative growth” for “losses.” Here’s the latest, which begins like this:
“During the 2019-23 period, I have used the words “mistake” or “error” 16 times in my letters to you. Many other huge companies have never used either word over that span. Amazon, I should acknowledge, made some brutally candid observations in its 2021 letter. Elsewhere, it has generally been happy talk and pictures.”
“At 94, it won’t be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters. Greg shares the Berkshire creed that a “report” is what a Berkshire CEO annually owes to owners. And he also understands that if you start fooling your shareholders, you will soon believe your own baloney and be fooling yourself as well.”
8. Takes on Trump. We’re drowning in information and misinformation about the American President. So each week I’ll try to offer things you may not have seen or that you can use…like The Civicus Monitor Watchlist which measures the degree of freedom in over 100 countries. Said Civicus: “The United States, once a global champion of democracy and human rights, joins the first 2025 watchlist along with Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan, and Serbia”…and like Jim Cuddy’s “We used to be the best of friends,” the best of a raft of rallying cries for O Canada…. like the Toronto Board of Trade’s Business Playbook for Navigating US-Canada Tariffs, and like the Top 3 Ideas for Mr. Trump to save the world with our help, from OG reader Daphne Taras.
9. How to make something big look small. Especially in making movies. Also, how America’s hidden aristocracy turned from limousine liberalism into luxury beliefs. “Think of wealthy people living in NYC highrises with plenty of private security, who wish to ‘defund the police’.” And how independence and purpose can give you a pretty nice life.
10. With all our bad news… at least we can still dance…and dance…and dance…and dance…and dance…and sing.