Enhanced Games Set to Launch With Legal Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Drawing Criticism From Anti-Doping Groups
The inaugural Enhanced Games took place in Las Vegas, featuring 42 athletes — 90.5% of whom used performance-enhancing drugs — competing for a $25 million prize pool under medical supervision. The event, backed by Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr., drew fierce condemnation from the IOC, WADA, and USADA, while anti-doping authorities failed to block it legally or legislatively. The competition has intensified a broader debate about athlete compensation, bodily autonomy, and the long-term risks of performance enhancement.
The Enhanced Games, founded by Australian entrepreneur Aron D'Souza and now led by CEO Max Martin, held its first competition at Resorts World Las Vegas, allowing athletes to use FDA-compliant performance-enhancing substances including testosterone, human growth hormone, EPO, stimulants, and anabolic agents under medical oversight. Of 36 athletes whose drug use was disclosed, 90.5% used at least one PED, with testosterone or testosterone esters being the most common at 90.5%, followed by HGH at 79%. WADA President Witold Bańka and USADA CEO Travis Tygart condemned the event as dangerous and unethical, but efforts to have U.S. authorities block it failed, partly due to the games' political backing from Donald Trump Jr. and President Trump. Medical ethicists and physiologists warned of serious health risks ranging from cardiovascular damage and cancer risk to crippling musculoskeletal injuries, while bioethicists noted that many participating athletes may be acting from financial vulnerability rather than genuine free choice. Australian Olympic swimmer Kyle Chalmers, who turned down a multi-million-dollar offer to compete, used the event's aftermath to highlight the stark financial disparity between Olympic athletes and Enhanced Games participants — noting that American swimmer Hunter Armstrong earned $375,000 for two races, more than Chalmers accumulated across 48 international medals. Scientists also flagged emerging technologies such as myostatin inhibition and CRISPR gene editing as the next frontier of enhancement, raising concerns that go well beyond the pharmacological interventions on display in Las Vegas.
What's missing
No source provides detailed follow-up data on athlete health outcomes or adverse events during or after the Enhanced Games themselves. The long-term medical monitoring protocols — and who is responsible for athlete welfare after the event concludes — are not clearly described by any source.
How coverage differed
The Los Angeles Times framed the Enhanced Games primarily through the lens of anti-doping outrage and political controversy, emphasizing WADA's failed attempts to block the event and the Trump family's involvement. Deutsche Welle took a more analytical, science-focused approach, centering expert voices on the ethics and physiology of enhancement with less emphasis on political actors, while the Australian outlets focused on the domestic financial grievances of Olympic athletes like Kyle Chalmers as the most consequential consequence of the games.
What different sources said
- ABC AustraliaCenter
'I don't see why you would choose this': Fears for swimming's future
At the inaugural Enhanced Games, the athletes are juiced by design. Anti-doping groups are aghast
- Deutsche WelleCenter
Enhanced Games: Why 'crippling injuries' are the least of it
- Sydney Morning HeraldCenter
‘I don’t know why you’d choose this avenue’: Chalmers fears athlete exodus to Enhanced Games
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