What you need to know about the Donald Trump Jr.-backed Enhanced GamesExBulletin

Two-time Olympic medalist Fred Kerley attends a news conference ahead of the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas, Friday, May 22, 2026. Unlike most athletes competing in Sunday night’s event, the sprinter says he will compete without taking performance-enhancing drugs. Ty ONeil/AP .

. Ty ONeil/AP

Think of the Olympics – with a multi-million jackpot and no rigid doping rules.

The Enhanced Games will take place on Sunday in Las Vegas with the promise of creating a global sporting competition “where elite athletes will push the limits of human performance”, according to organizers.

The privately funded games have garnered considerable attention online and are financially backed by Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capitol, and tech billionaire Peter Thiel. The company behind the event, publicly traded Enhanced Group, uses the games as a launch pad for its business, selling peptides and other supplements. Enhanced also documents the effects of drugs on athletes for its own research.

“I understand that there is a very large business opportunity for this company, but I think this is something that borders on the ethical,” said Dr. Aaron Baggish, a professor of medicine at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, who has worked with Boston sports teams for 20 years.

The one-night competition will take place in a custom-built arena at Resorts World Las Vegas with a four-lane 50-meter pool, six-lane sprint track and weightlifting stage.

What will happen at the Enhanced Games?

More than 40 athletes from around the world will compete in three sports: swimming, track and field and weightlifting. There will also be a showdown with the “strongman” deadlift.

The four swimming events are 50 meter and 100 meter freestyle and butterfly races. Track and field races include the 100 meter sprint as well as the 100 meter and 110 meter hurdles. The weightlifting series will include the clean and jerk as well as the snatch events.

The total prize pool for the games is $25 million, CEO Max Martin told Front Office Sports News. Each individual event has a total purse of $500,000, with a $250,000 prize awarded to first place. The company also said that if an athlete broke a world record in the 100-meter sprint or 50-meter freestyle, they would receive an additional $1 million. However, neither brand would be recognized by governing bodies, such as World Athletics, which requires drug testing.

Enhanced Games competitors are allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs that are banned at internationally renowned sporting events. According to the company, the drugs are approved by the FDA and prescribed by doctors.

Enhanced did not specify which specific athletes were using which medications, but they announced Wednesday before the event that 91% of competing athletes used testosterone or testosterone esters, 79% used human growth hormone and 62% used stimulants, such as Adderall.

Baggish said the public should understand that “FDA approval does not equate to safe use when the drug is not used in the way the FDA has approved it.”

He added that there is a difference between someone who is prescribed testosterone because they are not producing enough of it and someone who takes much higher doses for athletic performance.

Research on high doses of drugs like testosterone, for example, has shown an increased risk of heart disease, Baggish said. He said the number of enhanced athletes using testosterone is “very concerning”.

“We need to be careful not to confuse short-term success with long-term implications,” Baggish said. “These athletes, I suspect many, if not all of them, will go through the enhanced Games without any visible problems.”

“But what will happen to them in three years, in five years?” » said Baggish.

As a reminder, the International Olympic Committee follows strict guidelines regarding doping with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of prohibited substances. These include testosterone, human growth hormones, and stimulants such as Adderall. There are some strict exemptions.

Who is behind the games?

Enhanced Games was founded by Aron D’Souza, an Australian entrepreneur and lawyer who previously worked with Thiel to pursue legal action against Gawker Media. Martin, Enhancement’s CEO, took over from D’Souza in November.

In 2023, D’Souza announced the enhanced games, and last May, during a launch event, he divulged the details. At the event, he said the idea for the games came to him in 2022 “during a moment of reflection.”

“I imagined a new type of competition, where science, sport and society could evolve together, where we would stop apologizing for progress and start accepting it,” D’Souza said.

His company explores improving sports “in an open, responsible and ethical way,” he added.

The administration of the drugs was supervised by independent medical and scientific commissions, he said. D’Souza said the drugs would be administered under “fully customized protocols and constant monitoring to ensure their safety and optimal performance.”

Baggish, the professor of medicine, said he was approached to join Enhanced Games as a doctor, which he immediately refused. He said apparent medical oversight should not blind people to the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs.

“It’s like saying: If I’m a doctor who watches you smoking, I can assure you that smoking is safe,” Baggish said.

Representatives for Enhanced Games did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reviews of the games. In a 2024 statement responding to the International Federation of Sports Medicine’s concerns about the games, D’Souza said the competition’s approach “aims to reduce the risks associated with unregulated practices and bring them under medical supervision.”

“The Enhanced Games do not encourage indiscriminate use of controlled substances,” D’Souza said. “Instead, we advocate safe, responsible, and clinically supervised use of performance enhancements.”

Which athletes are participating?

Big names are participating in the games.

American Olympic gold medalist swimmers Cody Miller and former world record holder Hunter Armstrong, as well as British Olympic silver medalist swimmer Ben Proud will compete. American runner Fred Kerley, a three-time world champion and two-time Olympic medalist, will be a sprinter at the games. Kerley was banned from participating in world-recognized competitions for two years after failing drug tests – an anti-doping rule violation that does not necessarily mean an athlete is taking drugs – Athletics Integrity Unity announced in March.

Armstrong and Kerley said they were among the athletes who would not use performance-enhancing drugs during the games.

Most of the participating athletes trained for the competition in Abu Dhabi as part of Enhanced’s own study.

Former NFL player Emmanuel Acho and MLB Network broadcaster Abby Labar will host the competition.

What do the experts say?

The games have been widely criticized by outside medical experts and the sport’s governing bodies. Several recent studies assess the damage caused by Enhanced Games.

Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, called the games “a dangerous clown show that prioritizes profit over principle” in a statement. The International Olympic Committee said the Games were a “betrayal of everything we stand for.” Last year, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) urged US authorities to stop the games.

The International Federation of Sports Medicine said in 2024 that it considered medical oversight “insufficient” to support athletes.

“There is simply no way to make the use of these drugs safe through short- and long-term medical monitoring,” said Baggish, the professor of medicine. “It’s basically a natural history experiment to see what happens.”

Dr. Michael Joyner, a clinical anesthesiologist whose research focuses on physiology and human performance, said there is a credible body of research showing the effects of doping on a wide range of people, including a study linking the premature deaths of bodybuilders to steroid use and archival data from East Germany in the 1960s.

“The question is: What is someone trying to prove?” » Joyner said. “We have known for years that anabolic steroids work,” he added. “I don’t understand what’s new here.”

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