The Enhanced Games: A Mixed Bag of Results
The recent “Steroid Olympics,” officially called the Enhanced Games, took place in Las Vegas, and it was supposed to be thrilling, showcasing world records and a potential overhaul of sports as we know them. However, it didn’t quite live up to the hype. The event, backed by various tech investors and featuring athletes using performance-enhancing drugs, ended up being somewhat anticlimactic.
Only one athlete, classified as “enhanced,” managed to break a world record during the event. Interestingly enough, many “clean” athletes ended up securing top spots in major competitions.
Notable investors in these steroid-infused events include Peter Thiel from Palantir, Donald Trump Jr. from 1789 Capital, biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer, and the founder of the games, Aaron D’Souza from Australia.
Trump Jr. voiced his enthusiastic support by stating that the Enhanced Games promised “a future of real competition, real freedom, and real records to be broken.”
Founded in 2023, the Enhanced Games held its inaugural competition over Memorial Day weekend. Athletes were given the choice to compete drug-free or to use certain substances, which, while banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This list included testosterone, growth hormones, stimulants, and other performance enhancers.
Athletes who came in first were awarded $250,000, while any new world record setters received a bonus of $1 million.
American swimmer Hunter Armstrong, who previously earned gold medals in the 4×100 medley relay and freestyle at the Olympics, took first place in the men’s 50-meter backstroke but just missed his personal best by half a second.
Fred Curley, a silver medalist from the Tokyo Olympics and a bronze medalist from the Paris Olympics, returned to Japan and claimed first in the men’s 100-meter dash with a time of 9.97 seconds—well, perhaps not quite equivalent to Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58 seconds, but still impressive for a clean athlete.
This particular race had its challenges, with runners facing untied shoelaces and multiple false starts. Curley even humorously critiqued his drug-enhanced rivals, saying they “need to train a little harder and work a little harder.”
In the women’s 100-meter dash, clean runner Tristan Evelyn from Barbados took first place but clocked in at 11.25 seconds, noticeably slower than her previous Olympic winning time.
The sole athlete to break a world record at the Enhanced Games was Greek swimmer Christian Kolomeev, who accomplished this in 20.81 seconds while donning a synthetic “super suit” banned in regular Olympic events. This highlighted how unpredictable the competition truly was.
