Last summer, the Enhanced Games were a dubious curiosity, a Peter Thiel fever dream boldly touted as “redefining superhumanity” through the use of steroids, human growth hormones and any other forbidden substances that could improve performance.
On Sunday, the games will become a reality, with 42 mostly juiced athletes attempting to break records in 100-meter sprint, swimming and weightlifting competitions at Resorts World Las Vegas.
Funded by investors including Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal, the games will be lucrative for the athletes, with a total purse of $25 million and bonuses of $1 million for anyone who sets a world record.
Enhanced made public Wednesday the drug-use rates of 36 of the athletes scheduled to compete, announcing that its clinical study is listed on Clinicaltrials.gov. Two of the 36 included in the study and two of the six not included in the study are competing without PEDs, meaning 90.5% of the athletes are juiced.
Athletes took substances in five approved categories, including testosterone esters, anabolic agents, peptides and growth factors, metabolic modulators and stimulants. Enhanced said all of the substances complied with U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations.
Enhanced said 90.5% of the tested athletes used testosterone or testosterone esters, 79% used human growth hormone, 62% used stimulants, 50% used metabolic modulators, 41% used EPO and 29% used an anabolic steroid agent.
Aghast, of course, are the International Olympic Committee and World Anti-Doping Agency. Yet efforts by WADA president Witold Banka to persuade the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency — or even Congress — to pull the plug on the Enhanced Games failed.
World Anti-Doping Agency’s Director of Intelligence & Investigations Gunter Younger and President Witold Banka address a press conference in New Delhi on April 16, 2026.
(Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images)
“As the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles approach, we cannot allow what should be a celebration of honest sporting endeavor to be overshadowed by this cynical attempt to undermine clean sport,” Banka said. “We will urge the U.S. authorities to find legal ways to block this initiative.”
Lawmakers were reluctant to act, perhaps because the Enhanced Games have the unabashed support of Donald Trump Jr., who made a video trumpeting his involvement that includes an appearance by his father, President Trump.
In a statement accompanying the announcement of his funding, Trump Jr. said: “This is about excellence, innovation, and American dominance on the world stage — something the MAGA movement is all about.”
Those words might have drowned out the vociferous objections of Banka, who in October sounded baffled when he dismissed the Enhanced Games as a “ridiculous idea.”
“From the ethical point of view, from the moral point of view, how is it possible that people come to agree to compete, taking all these prohibited substances?,” Banka said. “It’s completely against everything that we are doing. It’s very dangerous.
“I hope it will not happen, although there are quite important and rich people who are sponsors of this irresponsible event.”
The important rich people carried the day, and the Enhanced Games will take place in Sin City with temperatures forecast up to 95 degrees. Forget that steroids can harden arteries, elevate stroke risk, damage the liver and permanently alter hormone systems.
The Las Vegas strip, including Resorts World, the site of the upcoming Enhanced Games, seen on March 11, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
The 2,500 invite-only spectators will watch several former Olympic medalists, including sprinter Fred Kerley and swimmers Hunter Armstrong and Cody Miller of the USA. Top women athletes include four-time world champion swimmer Megan Romano and sprinters Shania Collins and Taylor Anderson.
Anyone who competes in the Enhanced Games risks a permanent ban from the Olympics and World Athletics-sanctioned events. World Aquatics acted first, banning anyone who competes in the Enhanced Games.
“We desperately wish this investment was being made in the athletes who are currently training and competing the real and safe way,” USADA chief executive officer Travis Tygart said. “They are the role models this world so desperately needs and they are the ones who deserve our support — not some dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle.”
Enhanced CEO Max Martin — who took over from founder Aron D’Souza in November — said the games support the drug-taking athletes through medical oversight and personalized protocols.
“The approach is, let’s not be naive and pretend it’s not happening,” Martin told USA Today. “Let’s just take what’s happening in the shadows, put it out in the open, put the right medical and clinical framework around it.”
