This Sunday, 42 athletes will gather in Las Vegas for a sporting event that is, to put it mildly, a bit different. The inaugural Enhanced Games explicitly encourages participants to take performance-enhancing drugs, all in the name of 'pushing the boundaries of human performance.' Because why settle for natural limits when you can chemically renegotiate them?
Organizers insist that competitors will only use FDA-approved substances under medical supervision, which is reassuring until you remember that FDA approval means 'safe for treating a specific condition,' not 'safe for turning yourself into a human rocket while lifting weights.' They also expect world records to fall - and are backing that expectation with a $25 million prize pot, including up to $1 million for any athlete who breaks a record.
The games feature four categories: swimming, track and field, weightlifting, and strongman. Many participants already hold national or world records; some are Olympic medalists. They've been paid a salary to compete, because apparently the usual lure of glory and gold medals wasn't enough without a side of legalized doping.
The World Anti-Doping Agency maintains a lengthy list of banned substances - anabolic steroids, hormones, growth factors - many of which are FDA-approved for medical use. The Enhanced Games happily lets athletes use them, because 'banned in international sport' is apparently just a suggestion here. The risks - high blood pressure, acne, depression, liver tumors, weak muscles, vision problems, diabetes - are, shall we say, not the main selling point.
Technological doping is also welcome. Last year, swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev broke a 50-meter freestyle record while wearing a polyurethane 'super' swimsuit that has been banned in the Olympics since 2009 for giving an unfair advantage. But in the Enhanced Games, 'unfair' just means 'you didn't think of it first.'
Critics have been vocal. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe called participants 'moronic.' World Aquatics has banned Enhanced Games athletes from its events. Others see the whole thing as a 'clown show' that mocks clean athletes. But the games will still get attention - and so will the company behind them, Enhanced, which sells $52 T-shirts reading 'I am Enhanced' and a range of prescription peptides marketed for longevity, including a compounded growth hormone that is not FDA-approved for that purpose.
The games fit neatly into 2026's cultural obsession with optimization at any cost. Biohacking was shortlisted for Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year in 2025. Peptides are everywhere despite unknown safety profiles. Longevity clinics sell unproven treatments. Some states make it easier to access unapproved therapies. Companies offer to select embryos expected to live longest. In this climate, the Enhanced Games don't feel radical - they feel like the logical endpoint of an era where being human is apparently no longer enough.