In May 2026, Las Vegas will play host to the Enhanced Games – a competition where doping is not just allowed, it's required. Behind the project are libertarian investors – including Donal Trump Jr – and athletes motivated by million-dollar prizes.
In February 2025, in an empty aquatic centre in North Carolina, USA, Kristian Gkolomeev is about to break the 50 metre freestyle world record held for 16 years by César Cielo.
But this Greek swimmer – the European champion over this distance in June 2024, who came fifth in the race at the Paris Olympic Games – will never see this record ratified. Because the 32-year-old took banned substances in order to achieve this feat, becoming in the process the figurehead of a new sporting movement: the Enhanced Games.
A video of his performance posted on Instagram on 26 May garnered almost 7 million views, and Gkolomeev declared himself on his own profile to be the "fastest swimmer in history".
Five days earlier he had posted on his own account: "I’m excited to share that I’ll be representing myself and competing in the Enhanced Games – a new competition built on science and safety, aiming to reimagine the future of sport."
This "future" is one in which doping takes centre stage – not just permitted but encouraged, in the pursuit of what the Enhanced Games organisers call "superhumanity". Behind the project is 40-year-old Australian entrepreneur Aron D'Souza. For him, doping is not cheating but rather the “liberation” of human potential, made possible by science.
The Enhanced Games will see their first edition held from 21 to 24 May, 2026 at a Las Vegas resort. Three sports are on the programme: athletics (100m, 60m, 110m hurdles), swimming (50m and 100m freestyle and butterfly) and weightlifting.
Performance enhancing substances such as erythropoietin (EPO, a hormone which increases red blood cell production), testosterone and anabolic steroids – all of which are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) – will be permitted. The only caveat is that any drugs used can be prescribed by an American doctor.
Million-dollar prizes
Béatrice Bourgeois, president of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) is unequivocal that the event is not a sporting competition: "Using doping products is clearly no longer sporting performance, it's no longer sport."
And she has another concern. Athletes at the Enhanced Games will be rewarded with generous prize money – up to $500,000 per event, with a $1m bonus for record-breaking performances, according to The Guardian.
Gkolomeev has made no secret of the fact that it was the money that attracted him to the Enhanced Games. For (unofficially) beating the 50-metre freestyle record, he received a cheque for a million dollars. "That's 10 times more than I've earned in 10 years,” he told French sports newspaper L'Équipe.
Australian swimmer James Magnussen, world champion in the 100m freestyle in 2011 and 2013, who has signed up for the May 2026 event and has been preparing by taking banned substances including testosterone and the growth hormone ipamorelin, his newly inflated physique causing a stir in the swimming world, has said he is “willing to dope myself to the bone to earn a million dollars".
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“Won't some athletes find themselves forced to enter this doping process out of necessity, out of a need for money?” asks Bourgeois, who describes the Enhanced Games as "a political project with libertarian overtones".
Behind the event's major financial incentives are a number of wealthy investors, including Donald Trump Jr via his company 1789 Capital, and venture capitalist and right-libertarian activist Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Facebook's first investor, as well as investors from the Middle East.
Unanimous condemnation
Participating in the Enhanced Games is not without risk – both physical and in terms of career and credibility.
In a press release, the international swimming federation World Aquatics announced that: "Individuals who support, endorse or participate in sporting events that adopt the use of scientific advances or other practices that may include prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods will not be eligible to hold positions within World Aquatics or to participate in World Aquatics competitions, events or other activities."
For WADA, these games "endanger athletes' health and trivialise the abuse of powerful substances".
Anti-doping agencies also fear that the encouragement of medicalised doping could influence younger people.
"Today, through social media, we also have another audience that may be completely uneducated about anti-doping, may not see the problem with taking doping products, and may not see the health risks," said Jérémy Roubin, secretary-general of the AFLD, speaking on RTL radio.
These sentiments have been echoed by athletes. In a statement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athletes' Commission described the Enhanced Games as "a betrayal of everything we stand for" – adding that "such substances can have serious long-term health consequences, even death, and encouraging athletes to use them is totally irresponsible and immoral. No sporting success justifies such a cost".
France's four-time Olympic swimming champion Léon Marchand commented on Gkomoleev's world record video, simply saying: "It's sad."
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'A doping Olympics'
Despite such condemnation, Bourgeois firmly believes that these games will not be an isolated event, saying: "We must not think that... once this event is over, we will go back to business as usual."
Planned to take place every year, the Enhanced Games intends to expand the number of disciplines included in each edition, aiming to create a parallel Olympic Games for doped athletes.
To counter any normalisation of doping in sport, Bourgeois hopes to see governments take a more central role in the fight against it. Regulatory bodies operate within "the perimeter of the federations. When we go beyond this perimeter, we have lawless areas with this type of private competition, where the Olympic movement has much less power than governments," she said.
While the scale and potential success of the project remain unclear – D'Souza claims more than 500 athletes are in discussion with the organisation for the 2026 games, but only four are currently involved – it has already raised fundamental questions.
In challenging sporting institutions and the values they uphold, the Enhanced Games could well redraw the boundaries of what the general public considers sport to be.
This article was adapted from the original version in French.
