It felt just like the Olympics. Crowds cheering. The American flag standing tall above the bleachers. Trainers leaping with anticipation. A swimmer staring in disbelief on the clock after his closing stroke. The Jumbotron introduced: Kristian Gkolomeev — 20.89 seconds. A brand new world file within the 50-meter freestyle.
Effectively, form of.
I’ve disregarded some particulars. There was just one swimmer. The group? Simply medical doctors, trainers and filmmakers. This was not in an Olympic metropolis nor an Olympic 12 months, however in Greensboro, N.C., in 2025. And there have been no iconic rings on the banners, simply “Enhanced Video games.”
Sure, Gkolomeev swam sooner than César Cielo, the official file holder on the time (20.91 seconds). However he did it “enhanced” — a well mannered option to say that he used performance-enhancing medicine. On the Enhanced Video games, doping isn’t punished. It’s required.
The idea, as described by the organization: “to create the definitive scientific, cultural and sporting motion that safely evolves mankind into a brand new superhumanity.”
Backed by buyers akin to Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital, the Enhanced Video games embodies a techno-utopian very best: athletes as canvases for chemical optimization, testing the bounds of human well being for some huge cash. Gkolomeev earned $1 million for his file.
To date, the competitors has occurred at one-off pop-up occasions. However in Could, Las Vegas will host the first full-scale Enhanced Games, a four-day meet in swimming, observe and subject, and weightlifting. The group advertises a “potential prize purse of $7.5 million for just a single day of competition,” plus look charges.
Does it must be mentioned? Apparently sure: The Enhanced Video games glorifies the dangerous use of enhancement medicine.
Steroids can harden arteries, elevate stroke risk, damage the liver and permanently alter hormone systems. They aren’t electrolyte tablets or somewhat preworkout creatine. If Lance Armstrong had been rewarded — slightly than sanctioned — for doping, what would have occurred to aggressive biking?
Followers — and particularly children — mimic their idols. As dangerous because the medicine are for athletes on the Enhanced Video games, with its “medical fee” to present the phantasm of security, the substances are much more harmful when utilized by individuals with out medical supervision.
The video games additionally expose the financial neglect that drives athletes towards such competitors. As Benjamin Proud, the British silver medalist who just lately joined the Enhanced Video games, put it: “It will have taken me 13 years of successful a World Championship title with a purpose to win what I might win in a single race at these video games.”
Certainly, the Enhanced Video games would possibly appear to be a simple method out. Only nine swimmers worldwide acquired prize cash and efficiency bonuses above $75,000 in 2025, in line with World Aquatics.
Traders clearly hope to become profitable off the video games as properly. The group is shifting nearer to becoming a publicly traded company. The economics usually are not mysterious.
However the Enhanced Video games usually are not simply one other sporting occasion. They’re an enviornment for biomedical experimentation and must be regulated as such. The video games ought to face limits just like these imposed on different high-risk industries, together with age restrictions and strict promoting guidelines.
We already know methods to govern authorized, worthwhile actions that carry severe well being dangers.
In the US, meaning oversight from the Meals and Drug Administration and the Federal Commerce Fee — our bodies that regulate drug protocols and police deceptive industrial claims. A steroid-based competitors shouldn’t be handled as a sport however as a medical experiment and a advertising and marketing stunt.
Laws on pharmaceutical promoting supply a helpful mannequin for the Enhanced Video games. Pharmaceuticals are marketed each night time on tv, however solely below strict guidelines. They require fair balance (content material should current advantages and dangers with comparable prominence, readability and length) and a “main assertion” of dangers (most severe dangers have to be spoken aloud and never obscured by visuals or music).
Proper now, whenever you play Gkolomeev’s “world-record” video on YouTube, a medical-risk warning seems for barely 5 seconds — then vanishes. If a ldl cholesterol drug should audibly warn viewers of stroke threat, why shouldn’t a steroid-based competitors do the identical?
Enhanced Video games content material must be accompanied by clear warnings of the dangers of performance-enhancing medicine and be clearly labeled, age-gated and distributed as high-risk content material extra akin to pornography than to a boxing match.
Prohibition is just not the reply. Attempting to close down these video games solely fuels a controversy-driven model. Only recently, the Enhanced Video games sued organizations akin to World Aquatics and the World Anti-Doping Company, alleging antitrust violations and that blocking athletes from collaborating on the Enhanced Video games is against the law. As these organizations combat again, they are going to be searching for to guard the integrity of mainstream sports activities, however they may also inadvertently be selling the Enhanced Video games.
If we wish children to admire clear athletes slightly than these utilizing banned medicine, the Las Vegas launch should not attain the world as a Tremendous Bowl would. The Enhanced Video games shouldn’t be televised or allowed to stream on-line to minors. In any other case, Las Vegas, in Could, dangers turning into an unregulated public-health experiment mislabeled as a sporting occasion.
Fabricio Ramos dos Santos is a lawyer, entrepreneur and sports activities investor.
