The Enhanced Games

What it is

The Enhanced Games is a privately funded sporting event whose premise is that athletes may use performance-enhancing substances under medical supervision. It was founded in 2023 by the Australian entrepreneur and lawyer Aron D'Souza, with the biotech investor Christian Angermayer as co-founder. Its published framing is that "science and technology are recognized as fair advantages, allowing athletes to choose natural or enhanced competition," with medical profiling before competition, all athletes paid, and million-dollar prizes for beating world records.^[1]

Backers named in the company's own releases and in contemporaneous reporting include Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan in a seed round announced in January 2024 — amount undisclosed — and 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, joining as a lead investor in February 2025. The venture went public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company announced in November 2025 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as ENHA in May 2026. D'Souza was succeeded as chief executive by Maximilian Martin in November 2025.^{[1] [2] [3]}

The structural fact that governs everything else: the event is not a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code and holds no federation sanction, so it sits entirely outside the system described on the anti-doping page. Its sports — swimming, athletics and weightlifting — also fall outside the jurisdiction of the Nevada athletic commission, which regulates unarmed combat only.^[4]

The first edition, 24 May 2026

It took place. The first Enhanced Games was held on the evening of Sunday 24 May 2026 in a purpose-built arena at Resorts World Las Vegas, with a four-lane 50-metre pool, a six-lane sprint track and a weightlifting stage. It was a single night of competition — 23 events, 42 athletes, 24 countries — rather than the multi-day festival originally promoted. Media rights went to Roku; a prize pool of USD 25 million was claimed, with USD 250,000 to each event winner and a USD 1 million bonus for beating a recognised world record in the men's 100m or 50m freestyle.^[3] [5]

Results, and the comparisons that matter:

• Men's 50m freestyle — Kristian Gkolomeev, 20.81. Faster than the world record of 20.88, set by Cameron McEvoy in Shenzhen in March 2026. This is the correction most accounts get wrong: the mark Gkolomeev beat was McEvoy's two-month-old record, not César Cielo's 20.91 from 2009. He swam in a polyurethane suit of a type banned since 1 January 2010.^[5] [6]
• Men's 100m — Fred Kerley, 9.97, against a world record of 9.58 and Kerley's own Paris 2024 bronze-medal run of 9.81.
• Women's 100m — Tristan Evelyn, 11.25, against a world record of 10.49 and her own personal best of 11.14.
• Men's 50m butterfly — Ben Proud, 22.32, short of the 22.27 world record.
• Deadlift — Hafþór Björnsson, 475kg; both he and Mitchell Hooper failed at 515kg, short of the 510kg record.
• Men's 100m freestyle — James Magnussen, whose recruitment had launched the venture's publicity, finished last in the final.

So one mark in 23 events bettered a world record, and it will not be ratified — the event falls outside anti-doping rules and the swimsuit is prohibited. No track athlete, enhanced or otherwise, recorded a personal best. Of the 42 competitors, the organisers' own published usage data showed four competed without performance-enhancing drugs; two of them, Kerley and Evelyn, won their events and submitted to USADA testing to demonstrate it.^[5] [7]

The organisers published aggregate substance use ahead of the event: 91% testosterone or its esters, 79% human growth hormone, 62% stimulants, 50% metabolic modulators, 41% erythropoietin and 29% an anabolic steroid agent. Individual protocols were not disclosed. An institutional-review-board-approved clinical trial ran alongside, with 36 of the 42 athletes participating.^[7]

How the sport establishment responded

World Aquatics wrote a rule. Its Bureau approved By-law 10 on 3 June 2025: individuals who support, endorse or participate in events embracing prohibited substances or methods are ineligible to hold positions with World Aquatics or to take part in its competitions, events or activities — as athlete, coach, team official, administrator, medical staff or government representative. Eligibility decisions are made case by case by the Bureau, and member federations were encouraged to adopt equivalent national rules.^[8]

Others made statements. World Athletics' Sebastian Coe said in early 2024 that anyone in the traditional sport "moronic enough" to take part would be banned for a long time. WADA called it a "dangerous and irresponsible concept," warned that participants would risk anti-doping rule violations, and urged US authorities to stop it. The IOC called it "a betrayal of everything that we stand for." USADA's Travis Tygart called it "a dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle." UK Anti-Doping, the Australian Olympic Committee, CHINADA and the International Federation of Sports Medicine issued their own objections.^{[9] [10] [11]}

What did not happen is instructive. No completed sanction against a named athlete for competing at the Enhanced Games could be identified. By-law 10 is framed prospectively and applied case by case, and most of the participating swimmers and sprinters had already retired from sanctioned sport before joining — which, rather than any disciplinary action, is the mechanism by which the two worlds stayed separate. Fred Kerley's two-year ban is a separate matter: it was imposed by the Athletics Integrity Unit in March 2026 for missed tests, not for participating.^[12] [13]

The lawsuit

On 27 August 2025 the Enhanced Games sued World Aquatics, USA Swimming and WADA in the Southern District of New York under the Sherman Act, seeking at least USD 200 million in damages, trebled to at least USD 800 million, plus injunctive relief.^[14]

Judge Jesse M. Furman dismissed it on 17 November 2025 in a 33-page order, holding that the plaintiff had not alleged that By-law 10 automatically applied to every elite international swimming competition — the only events it conditions access to are those World Aquatics itself hosts, which the plaintiff conceded are not the whole market. Leave to amend was granted for 30 days; the company did not refile and the case was closed in December 2025.^[15] [16]

The sequence is worth noting: the venture sued and lost before its first event ever took place, then abandoned the case.

Where it stands now

The company remains funded and operating, and heavily loss-making. Its second-quarter results, released 13 August 2026, reported revenue of USD 17.7 million against games and event operating costs of USD 52.0 million, a quarterly net loss of USD 61.9 million and an accumulated deficit of USD 110.4 million, with USD 19.6 million in cash. It raised USD 50 million in a private placement after the event. The share price, which opened at USD 7.40 on its 8 May 2026 debut, was USD 1.71 on 17 August 2026.^[17] [18]

The stated forward plan is Enhanced Breakers, launched 23 June 2026 — a smaller, digitally distributed record-attempt series held between Games cycles, the first staged in Los Angeles on 11 July 2026. A second full Games has been discussed, including a USD 10 million bounty for beating Usain Bolt's 100m record, but no date, venue or programme has been announced, and the company's own August 2026 results release makes no mention of one. Much of the business has meanwhile moved toward direct-to-consumer "performance medicine."^[19] [17]

The medical argument

The organisers' position is that supervision makes the difference. An independent medical commission conducted screening before competition — blood tests and ECGs — and its chair reported being "very pleased with the results and the overall health picture each participating athlete has demonstrated during the study period."^[7] [1]

The objection from clinicians is that supervision does not make the drugs safe. Dr Aaron Baggish of the University of Lausanne, who says he was approached to serve as a doctor for the event and declined, argues that "FDA approval does not equate with safe use when the drug is not used the way the FDA has approved it," that there is "simply no way to make the use of these drugs safe by medical monitoring in the short and long term," and that the exercise is "essentially a natural history experiment to see what happens." Dr Michael Joyner, a physiologist, questions what is being demonstrated at all: that anabolic steroids work has been known for decades. Others have raised the coercive effect of large prizes on athletes with few options.^[11] [20]

Athletes have said both things. James Magnussen, who disclosed using testosterone and several peptides, said that "this is not for everyone, and it is certainly not something for young athletes." No adverse medical events at the May 2026 event were reported in any source consulted for this page, which is an absence of reports rather than evidence of safety.^[5]