The Enhanced Games is a sporting competition that allows athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs provided they are licensed and administered under a doctor's supervision. The first edition kicks off on May 24th 2026 in Las Vegas with around 50 athletes in swimming, weightlifting and athletics; up to $25m is on offer in prizes, with $250,000 for first place and bonuses of up to $1m for world-record breakers. About 2,500 people will watch from a purpose-built modular arena (which cost about $8m, $6m of it on the pool alone) and The Killers will play the closing ceremony.
The Games were conceived by Aron D'Souza, an Australian lawyer, after he overheard "enhanced" gym-goers discussing their drug "stacks" at a Miami gym in late 2022. Backers include Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan and Christian Angermayer; Donald Trump junior is an investor through 1789 Capital. Angermayer became the main backer; Maximilian Martin became CEO in August 2025. The company lost $4.7m in 2024 and $26.7m in 2025. In May 2026 it went public via a special-purpose-acquisition-company merger valuing it at $1.2bn—although most SPAC shareholders sold out, taking most of the $200m the combined firm might have held. Angermayer's investment firm holds about 97% of the voting power.
A "menu" of drugs is available, tailored to each sport: testosterone and anabolic steroids for muscle; human-growth hormone for tissue repair; erythropoietin for red blood cells; meldonium for endurance; modafinil and Adderall for focus. Only drugs approved for humans are allowed (excluding most peptides). The independent medical commission is chaired by Guido Pieles, a sports cardiologist. The protocols were trialled in early 2026 at ERTH, a luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi being converted into a sporting complex; the trial faced delays from regulatory approvals and from the Iran war, as missile debris hit a lab processing test results.
In February 2024 James Magnussen, a retired Australian swimmer, became the first to take Enhanced's $1m offer for a world record. By the time he swam in May 2025 he had put on 20kg of muscle, but his record attempt failed: "Unfortunately I didn't actually grow gills." Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev broke the 50-metre freestyle world record alone in a pool in North Carolina, earning $1m from the company. Ben Proud, a British silver medallist at Paris 2024, joined Enhanced after weighing the trade-off between Olympic eligibility and earning power. Other competitors include Mitchell Hooper (two-time World's Strongest Man), Emmanuel Matadi and Marvin Bracy-Williams. Six Enhanced athletes have faced drug-related suspensions in their careers, leading critics to dub the games the "Cheaters' Olympics".
Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) are chemical cousins of testosterone. A 1996 study found young men given high testosterone and no exercise saw a 19% improvement in lower-body strength after ten weeks—about the same as exercising-only controls; combining steroids with training gave a 38% increase. A 1997 Clinical Chemistry paper, drawing on East German doping records, found turinabol improved a female athlete's shot-put distance by around 15% in 11 weeks. Side-effects include increased heart-disease risk, suppression of natural testosterone production (causing testicular shrinkage and infertility), male-pattern baldness, gynecomastia in men, and clitoral enlargement, beard growth and voice deepening in women. About 6% of men have used AAS at least once, according to a 2014 meta-analysis.
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