Photo © Martin Šandera | Dreamstime.com
About 15 months ago, SDM asked “Will the Enhanced Games really happen?”
As of May 21, the answer appears to be “yes.”
The inaugural edition of the Olympics-style competition promoting the use of performance-enhancing drugs such steroids, testosterone and growth hormone will take place over Memorial Day Weekend 2026 at Resorts World in Las Vegas. Following melodramatic buildup — “We are here to move humanity forward. To redefine what mankind can be with audacity,” proclaimed an introductory video — the announcement was made at the resort on a big stage in a darkened room set up to look like an awards banquet, complete with strobe lights and house music.
ESPN.com described the spectacle as geared “more toward a tech start-up product launch than a sports event.”
“One thing that makes us different is that we don’t shame performance enhancements. We embrace them,” Maximilian Martin, deputy president of the Enhanced Games, said during the 30-minute announcement. “We provide a safe, medically supervised platform for athletes who choose to explore what their true human potential looks like. It’s about freedom of choice, safety and science — not stigma.”
Martin added, however, that athletes need not be enhanced to compete.
The presentation, which was broadcast on YouTube, Twitter/X and the Enhanced Games website, left a lot of unanswered questions that hopefully will be answered over the next 12 months.
This much, however, is clear: An estimated 100 athletes are expected to compete in swimming, weightlifting and athletics (track and field). They will include, according to Martin, finalists from the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, as well as world-recordholders and “rising stars.” Organizers plan to host the event annually.
The athletes will be paid for competitions and appearances and will also receive rank-based bonuses and $1 million for breaking world records — all while under the constant scrutiny of a high-performance team of coaches, doctors, nutritionists, physiologists and data scientists “working together to push the limits of human capability,” Aron D’Souza, founder and president of Enhanced, which created the Enhanced Games, said during the announcement.
He added that enhancements will be explored “openly, responsibly and ethically” and explained that the Enhanced Games will be overseen by independent medical and scientific commissions. (He also announced the launch of the Enhanced Performance Products brand.)
The Enhanced Games are privately funded by investors that include billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.’s investment firm. Enhanced’s website states that protecting athletes is the top priority: “Every competitor will undergo rigorous, state-of-the-art medical profiling before participating in the competition.” The site also proclaims that “scientific and technological advancements can be safely applied to sport. Their use should be embraced and celebrated in elite competition.”
“This is not as careless as some of the headlines have suggested,” Martin said during the announcement event, which was highlighted by a lengthy video depicting 31-year-old Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev (a four-time Olympian) setting what Enhanced claims are two new world records.
Organizers said … Gkolomeev swam 20.89 seconds in a 50m freestyle time trial in the U.S. in February, 0.02 seconds quicker than the world record set by Brazil’s Cesar Cielo in 2009,” BBC.com reports before explaining further:
[He] was wearing a full-length polyurethane “supersuit,” which was banned from the competition by swimming authorities a few weeks after Cielo set the world record in one.
However, in another attempt in April, Gkolomeev swam 21.03 in textile “jammer” shorts, which comply with current World Aquatics regulations.
That time is 0.01 seconds faster than anyone has gone without the aid of “supersuits,” beating a mark set by American nine-time Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel.
The Enhanced Games say the two times are legitimate, with Gkolomeev’s swims recorded using the same timing equipment deployed at the Olympics, staged at a certified pool which has hosted the past four U.S. Open events and overseen by experienced officials.
Neither mark will be recognized by World Aquatics.
Gkolomeev trained with two-time Australian Olympian and former Auburn University swimming coach Brett Hawke, who recently was named head swim coach for the Enhanced Games — earning a reported $250,000 per year, according to SwimSwam.com.
“While those behind the Enhanced Games might be looking to make a quick buck, that profit would come at the expense of kids across the world thinking they need to dope to chase their dreams,” Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said in a May 16 statement in which the agency explained what athletes and others should know about the Enhanced Games. “We desperately wish this investment was being made in the athletes who are currently training and competing the real and safe way. They are the role models this world so desperately needs and they are the ones who deserve our support — not some dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle.”
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