Wednesday, May 27, 2026 | 2 a.m.
Editor’s note: “Behind the News” is the merchandise of Sun unit assisted by the Sun’s AI lab, which includes a assortment of tools specified arsenic Anthropic’s Claude and Google Gemini.
It billed itself arsenic the aboriginal of sport. It arrived successful a custom-built arena connected the Strip, draped successful million-dollar bonuses and backed by tech billionaires who argued that performance-enhancing drugs merit a spot astatine the table.
But erstwhile the fume cleared Sunday nighttime astatine the inaugural Enhanced Games, held astatine Resorts World Las Vegas, the verdict was much analyzable than either its promoters oregon its detractors had anticipated. The lawsuit distributed $6.6 cardinal successful prizes and generated breathless online statement — but it produced conscionable 1 people that eclipsed an existing satellite grounds and adjacent that came with an asterisk.
The setup
The Enhanced Games committedness a planetary sports contention “where elite athletes propulsion the limits of quality performance,” according to organizers. Financial backing from investors including Peter Thiel, Bryan Johnson and Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital made the prize wealth possible.
The lawsuit openly allows competitors to usage performance-enhancing drugs nether aesculapian supervision. Founder Aron D’Souza, an Australian entrepreneur and lawyer, has said the medication of drugs was overseen by autarkic aesculapian and technological commissions. He framed the games not arsenic a rogue endeavor but arsenic a logical evolution. “I imagined a caller benignant of competition, 1 wherever subject and athletics and nine could germinate together, wherever we stopped apologizing for advancement and started to clasp it,” D’Souza said astatine the concept’s launch. [1]
Enhanced reported that 91% of athletes successful the contention utilized testosterone, 79% utilized quality maturation hormone and 29% utilized anabolic steroids. [2] Not each rival participated successful the chemic experiment. Sprint champion Fred Kerley, swimmer Hunter Armstrong and sprinter Tristan Evelyn each said they competed without taking drugs.
On the track
Kerley ran 100 meters successful 9.97 seconds to triumph the Enhanced Games successful a contention wherever the sprinters had to beryllium placed successful the starting blocks 4 times due to the fact that of mendacious starts and untied shoes.
The effect was a disappointment of the archetypal order. Kerley had predicted publically that Usain Bolt’s satellite grounds of 9.58 seconds would get “destroyed.” [3] His clip would not person precocious him past the Paris Olympics semifinals. At Paris, competing clean, helium ran 9.81 and won bronze.
In the women’s 100 meters, Evelyn of Barbados, won successful 11.25 seconds — much than three-quarters of a 2nd slower than Florence Griffith Joyner’s satellite grounds and good disconnected Evelyn’s ain idiosyncratic champion of 11.14. The effect underscored the event’s broader pattern: cleanable athletes won sprints, and the enhanced athletes down them were slower still.
In the pool
Swimming produced the night’s astir consequential — and astir contested — moment. In the last event, Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev broke the non-enhanced satellite grounds of 20.88 seconds successful the men’s 50-meter freestyle, finishing successful 20.81 seconds. The aquatics earned him $250,000 for archetypal spot and a $1 cardinal bonus for eclipsing the existing mark.
“Another million, it’s not atrocious astatine all,” Gkolomeev said afterward. “It’s going to alteration my beingness to the good, for sure.” [4]
But the grounds volition ne'er look successful immoderate authoritative ledger. Gkolomeev was utilizing WADA-banned substances and wearing a banned polyurethane skinsuit, some of which are believed to supply astir a 2% show boost. World Aquatics banned full-body polyurethane suits from contention connected Jan. 1, 2010. The record, specified arsenic it was, came successful a suit that has been amerciable for 16 years.
The lasting authoritative grounds remains 20.88 seconds, acceptable by Australian Cameron McEvoy successful 2026. McEvoy, who acceptable the morganatic satellite grounds conscionable 2 months earlier, responded with memes connected Instagram. He posted pointed images, including a taunt that read, “Seriously?! That’s each you got!” [5]
The Enhanced Games dismissed timing questions raised online arsenic “completely unfounded net drivel,” saying its timing had been operated by Primetime Timing, which it described arsenic “a recognised, reputable, ISO certified system.”
British swimmer Ben Proud, who competed connected a afloat doping protocol, came adjacent to the satellite grounds successful the men’s 50-meter butterfly, posting 22.32 seconds against the satellite grounds of 22.27. Las Vegas-raised swimmer Cody Miller, a erstwhile Olympic medalist, took location $500,000 connected the day, winning 2 events. [6]
On the platform
The marquee weightlifting showdown pitted Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson — the Icelandic strongman known globally arsenic “the Mountain” from “Game of Thrones” — against Canadian Mitchell Hooper, the reigning World’s Strongest Man.
Björnsson secured triumph by successfully locking retired 475 kilograms, portion some men failed connected 515-kilogram satellite grounds attempts successful the last round. Hooper shocked the assemblage by calling for 515 kg connected his 3rd attempt, jumping into world-record territory contempt ne'er antecedently hitting that fig successful competition. The satellite deadlift grounds stands astatine 510 kg, besides held by Björnsson. [7]
In Olympic weightlifting, Canadian Boady Santavy lifted 177 kg successful the men’s snatch, portion American Wesley Kitts lifted 185 kg successful the 110-kilogram class. No satellite records fell connected the platform.
The statement for enhancement
Supporters of the Enhanced Games contend that the existing anti-doping authorities is simultaneously hypocritical and ineffective. Their statement runs similar this: doping successful elite athletics is already pervasive, poorly policed and unevenly punished. By bringing enhancement into the unfastened nether aesculapian supervision, the Enhanced Games astatine slightest offers transparency and reduces the wellness risks that travel with unsupervised use.
D’Souza has gone further, arguing that the Olympics themselves are nary longer acceptable for purpose. In effect to WADA criticism, D’Souza argues the bureau is hypocritical and points to Olympic corruption scandals. His enactment frames enhancement not arsenic cheating but arsenic the logical exertion of subject to quality show — the aforesaid logic, proponents say, that governs altitude training, precocious nutrition and biomechanical coaching.
The prize structure, too, represents a genuine disruption. With $25 cardinal successful prize wealth connected offer, the lucrative payouts attracted Olympic medalists including Cody Miller and Ben Proud successful swimming, Fred Kerley successful way and Hafþór Björnsson successful weightlifting. For athletes astatine oregon adjacent the extremity of their elite careers — oregon those already suspended from accepted contention — the Enhanced Games offered a uncommon fiscal lifeline.
The statement against
The objections are substantial, and they travel from crossed the sports world.
WADA condemned the Enhanced Games arsenic a “dangerous and irresponsible concept.” World Athletics president Lord Sebastian Coe said: “No 1 wrong athletics takes the Enhanced Games seriously.” Before the event, Coe had gone further, calling the conception “moronic” and “a unsafe clown show.” [8]
World Aquatics introduced a bylaw that prevents immoderate jock oregon authoritative progressive successful the Enhanced Games from competing oregon holding positions successful the sport.
The results themselves handed critics their sharpest weapon. If PEDs are genuinely transformative — arsenic the Enhanced Games’ premise insists — wherever was the transformation? A sprinter competing cleanable ran a clip that would not person precocious him past the Paris semifinals. A swimmer connected a afloat PED protocol, wearing a suit banned since 2010, bushed the existent satellite grounds by seven-hundredths of a second. Weightlifters fell 35 kilograms abbreviated of the deadlift satellite record.
In all, Enhanced said 14 idiosyncratic bests were acceptable by 12 athletes, each of them swimmers and weightlifters. No way jock — enhanced oregon different — posted a idiosyncratic best.
The suit contented whitethorn beryllium the astir damaging constituent of the Gkolomeev swim. His “world record” required not conscionable banned substances but banned exertion abandoned by the athletics much than 15 years ago. The question the Enhanced Games was expected to reply — what tin the quality assemblage do, afloat enhanced by science? — was muddled by a portion of instrumentality that has thing to bash with biology.
What comes next
The Enhanced Games has pledged to return, and its organizers declared the inaugural lawsuit a success. Whether the sports constitution agrees is different matter. The event’s ambition was to unit a reckoning with sport’s narration to pharmaceutical enhancement. Instead, it whitethorn person reinforced the other conclusion: that the spread betwixt an enhanced jock and a genuinely elite, cleanable rival is narrower than advertised — and that the suit mattered arsenic overmuch arsenic the syringe.
Sources
[1] D’Souza punctuation from NPR, May 24, 2026: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/24/nx-s1-5831252/enhanced-games-steroids-olympics-trump
[2] Enhanced Games objective proceedings information from SwimSwam, May 20, 2026: https://swimswam.com/enhanced-games-releases-ped-usage-data-ahead-of-inaugural-competition-in-las-vegas/
[3] Kerley prediction from Canadian Running Magazine, May 2026: https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/enhanced-games-to-debut-on-sunday-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
[4] Gkolomeev punctuation from Outlook India, May 25, 2026: https://www.outlookindia.com/sports/others/enhanced-games-2026-las-vegas-report-and-reactions
[5] McEvoy Instagram effect reported by SwimSwam, May 25, 2026: https://swimswam.com/cam-mcevoy-responds-to-enhanced-games-world-record-with-memes-seriously-thats-all-you-got/
[6] Cody Miller prize wealth from SwimSwam unrecorded recap, May 24, 2026: https://swimswam.com/enhanced-games-live-recap/
[7] Deadlift satellite grounds and Enhanced Games results from Generation Iron, May 25, 2026: https://generationiron.com/enhanced-games-2026-deadlift-results/
[8] Lord Coe “dangerous clown show” punctuation from Canadian Running Magazine, May 2026: https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/enhanced-games-to-debut-on-sunday-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
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