The ‘Improved Games’ wanted to show that the future of sport is doping. Things didn’t go as expected

It is still too early to know if the Enhanced Gamesthe famous ‘Enhanced Games’ that were held this weekend in Las Vegas with some rules on doping infinitely more lax than those of any competition recognized by the IOC, will achieve their commercial objectives. Whether or not it has been an effective marketing campaign. What is already clear is that they have deflated at a sporting level. Its organizers promised an evening full of heart-stopping records and marks by athletes ‘enhanced’ with steroids, EPO or testosterone, but they have obtained only one record.

The question that remains is… And now, what?

Doped athletes? To the Enhanced Games Many things may be blamed on them and their philosophy will be more or less convincing, but there is one thing that cannot be blamed on them: going head-on. The event, held over the weekend in Las Vegas with the pomp of a great showadvanced its objective already in its name: ‘Improved Games’. Its purpose was to organize an athletics, swimming and weightlifting competition in which athletes could doping almost without restrictions.

The only limit was that they did not use illegal drugs and the drugs had been prescribed by a doctor. From there, wide Castilla: anabolic steroids, testosterone, EPO… The use of prohibited equipment was even allowed, such as polyurethane suits similar to those that the International Swimming Federation (FINA) banned years ago. The idea was very simple: to prove that, in order not to remain “stuck” and allow athletes to give “the best version” of themselves, official sport must rethink its vetoes.

The value of a good show. Although the idea is provocative and has earned it enormous media exposure, the organizers of the Enhanced Games wanted to give the event the appearance of a great show. The competition was held at Resorts World in Las Vegas, in a stadium with capacity for 2,500 people and after months of a speech measured to the millimeter to generate expectation. In his favor he had two great claims, beyond the controversy.

The first, a team of media athletes. Among the athletes who agreed to participate, Olympic medalists or podiums from world tournaments such as Leidy Solis (silver in Beijing 2008), Fred Kerley (silver in Tokyo 2020), Kristian Gkolomeev (silver at Gwangju 2019) or Hafþór Björnssonweightlifter who reached a world record in 2025 and is famous above all for playing “the Mountain” in ‘Game of Thrones’. And that among a wide etcetera.

42 athletes. In total, 42 athletes (sprinters, swimmers and weightlifters) participated in the Enhanced Games, the vast majority of whom were doped. Guardian precise that of all of them there were only three people who chose to participate in the tests in a ‘clean’ way, without consuming chemical substances that would be equivalent to a disqualification in any official tournament.

Their participation in the event gave an extra point of epicness to the Enhanced Games and reinforced its main challenge: Can the consumption of testosterone, EPO, steroids or polyurethane suits really make a difference?

Don’t say sport, say money. The second claim that we referred to before explains what Gkolomeev, Björnsson and many other athletes who agreed to participate in the Enhanced Games were doing yesterday in Las Vegas.

Beyond their greater or lesser harmony with the underlying message, if they decided to compete it was because the organization promised great awards: $500,000 per test, half of it for the winner. If he also managed to set a world record in one of the “definitive tests” (100 m dash and 50 m freestyle) he could earn an extra one million.

And how was it? Not as good as the organizers (probably) expected. Despite the expectation generated, the advertisements who claimed that records were already being broken in training and throughout the hype generated around the use of chemicals, the reality is that the first Enhanced Games only managed to crown a world record.

The Greek swimmer did it Kristian Gkolomeevalmost in extremis. Under the watchful eye of the organizers, he managed to complete the 50 meter freestyle in 20.81 seconds, slightly lower than the 20.88 official record achieved by the Australian. Cameron McEvoy in March.

Proof of the relief that this meant for those responsible for the Enhanced Games is that, after the race (and in further demonstration that the tournament was more intended as a show than a sporting event), the executive director of the ‘Games’, Max Martin, he knelt before Gkolomeev to proclaim his victory. The mark of 20.81 will not be officially valid, but it will allow the Greek to pocket the bonus of one million dollars. “Maybe next year I’ll beat it again,” he said.

A pyrrhic victory. Martin did not save on superlatives when evaluating the competition and went so far as to celebrate that the Enhanced Games have “changed the world”. “We have seen how records were broken and how 12 athletes broke personal bests,” celebrated.

The reality is that the balance of the first ‘Improved Games’ has been discreet and has certainly fallen far below the expectations generated by the organization itself. Beyond the consumption of doping substances allowed in the event, Gkolomeev, for example, scratched his record with the help of a ‘supersuit’ banned by FINA.

Doped vs ‘clean’. Apart from the fact that there were athletes who broke their “personal records” thanks to doping, as the organization claims, in some cases the competitions were won by the few athletes who claimed not to use drugs.

This was the case, for example, of Hunter Armstrong, who won the 50 m backstroke against two doped rivals, or the sprinters Tristan Evelyn and Fred Kerley, who in addition to taking the winner’s check he threw a jibe to their opponents: “They have to train a little harder, get their act together.”

A confusing message. That’s probably the big problem with the first Enhanced Games. Those responsible they cling to the message that the event left a world record and “13 personal records”, but the reality is that the photo is much more complicated… and confusing. And not only because there were tests in which theoretically non-doped athletes beat others who had used substances banned by the IOC.

The staging also had nothing to do with that of the Olympic Games. For example, as weightlifter Boady Santavy failed to set the world record in his test after the three allowed attempts, the organization decided to give him “one last chance”. Bjornsson didn’t break his record either.

The reality is that, despite bringing together well-known names, the majority of athletes who signed up for the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas have not managed to reach the top of the podium at the Olympic Games or are already over thirty.

The great unknown. Once the sporting balance of the event has been clarified, one unknown remains: what the commercial balance will be like. The Enhanced Games are not only a sporting event. They are also (and above all) a media advertising hook that has focused attention on doping substances, chemicals that, the organizers claim, allow those who consume them to obtain “the best version of themselves.”

In fact, if it offers such generous rewards to its athletes, it is due, in large part, to the fact that its investors aspire to get fully involved in the huge business of ‘eternal youth’, which only in the US moves around 600,000 million per year.

“Investors know that if we succeed, it will translate into hundreds of billions of dollars through the development of new clinical treatments or the alternative use of existing treatments,” claims Aron D’Souzathe visible face of the competition. On the Enhanced website there is an extensive catalog of products with testosterone, peptides, semaglutide… It is also known that the investors in the event include the technology billionaire Peter Thiel and the eldest son of Donald Trump.

Image | Enhanced Games (X)

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