LAS VEGAS — A new company hoping to infuse unprecedented levels of science, money and performance-enhancing drugs into Olympic-style sports says it will hold its first formal competition next May in Las Vegas.
The Enhanced Games announced plans Wednesday to host in exactly one year its first annual competition in which athletes will be allowed, if not outright encouraged, to use PEDs like steroids, testosterone and growth hormone that are typically legal to possess but banned in sports. Organizers say they hope to remove the stigma of using these substances and promote safer ways to push the limits of human performance.
Aron D’Souza, the company’s founder and president, framed Wednesday’s announcement as the opening salvo in an effort to create “superhumanity.” He unveiled the event’s grandiose ambitions from the stage of a club on the Las Vegas Strip, accompanied by strobe lights and house music in a presentation that hued more toward a tech start-up product launch than a sports event.
“We are here to move humanity forward,” D’Souza said. “… The old rules didn’t just hold back athletes, they held back humanity.”
D’Souza’s company is offering substantial financial incentives to athletes who will likely have to give up future opportunities to compete in most other international sporting events. Along with a $500,000 purse for each event ($250,000 to the first-place finisher), Enhanced Games will also provide appearance fees to athletes and bonuses for breaking records during the competition.
Enhanced Games has already signed its first $1 million check as a bonus for beating a world record. Wednesday’s launch featured an hour-long documentary that showed Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev setting a new world record in the 50-meter freestyle weeks after he began training with PEDs. Enhanced Games says that event, in Greensboro, North Carolina, was verified by USA Swimming officials in attendance. It was closed to the news media and the result could not be independently verified.
Gkolomeev, 31, signed up to race with Enhanced Games in December, several months after competing in his fourth Olympics, and was one of two swimmers who have been chasing a $1 million bounty for beating the world record as part of an effort to promote the new company. The former NCAA national champion finished fifth in the previous two 50-meter freestyle finals at the Olympics, missing out on a medal in Paris by 0.03 seconds.
In February, he clocked a time of 20.89 seconds in a time trial, edging out the 20.91 world-record time set by Brazil’s Cesar Cielo in 2009. In an interview with ESPN last week, Gkolomeev declined to say what specific drugs he used, citing concerns that others would try to replicate his enhancement stack without proper medical supervision.
“I really want to share it with everyone because it was basically nothing, but it’s not right for other people to know because I don’t want to encourage anyone to do what I do without a doctor,” Gkolomeev said.
Gkolomeev said he was motivated to join Enhanced Games to reach his top potential and to make money after a long career in swimming.
“A successful year at the Enhanced Games for me is more than I could make in 10 careers,” he said.
Enhanced Games has received millions of dollars in initial funding from some notable venture capitalists — including PayPal founder Peter Thiel, psychedelics and longevity enthusiast Christian Angermayer and 1789 Capital, an investment firm run in part by Donald Trump Jr.
D’Souza declined to provide exact figures for how much the organization has raised.
The company says it plans to make money by selling direct-to-consumer performance enhancers such as testosterone. One company executive recently compared the model to Red Bull, which uses extreme sports events to market its energy drinks.
Officials from the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency have criticized the Enhanced Games as a reckless endeavor that could jeopardize the health of athletes and tarnish the spirit of sports.
Travis Tygart, head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, referred to the new company as “a dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle” in a statement posted to the organization’s website.
D’Souza argues that a competition that demands transparency about what substances athletes are using is safer and more fair than many current leagues and events, which struggle at times to police steroid use in their sports.
Anti-doping rules are also rooted in an effort to make sure contests are decided with natural talent and individual achievement rather than an arms race for who can buy better drugs, traditionalists say. D’Souza and others at Enhanced Games argue that the lines those organizations draw are outdated and arbitrary. Technology and nutrition already play a major role in sports and provide distinct advantages to teams or nations that can afford to spend more on their athletes.
Company officials say the competition next May will not quite be an anything-goes steroid bonanza. Enhanced Games athletes will be allowed to take substances that are legal in the United States and prescribed by a licensed doctor, the company says. Examples may include testosterone, growth hormone and some types of anabolic steroids. Illicit drugs — cocaine, for example — will not be allowed.
Company officials say a select group of the athletes will have all their medical care provided by Enhanced Games and receive their PEDs as part of a clinical trial that is pending ethical approval. Others may apply to compete as independently enhanced athletes, and natural athletes who are not taking any PEDs are also welcome.
Athletes will have to pass a medical screening before they’re allowed to compete and are required to report any substances they are using. However, the organization says it doesn’t plan to do any drug tests for competitors and does not have any black-and-white policy that would disqualify athletes who use illegally sourced or high-risk substances as long as they pass their medical screening.
The competition next May is scheduled to feature eight different events in swimming (50m and 100m races in freestyle and butterfly), track (100m sprint and 100/110m hurdles) and weightlifting (snatch, clean and jerk) on a custom-built competition floor at Resorts World on the Las Vegas Strip. The company initially announced plans to include gymnastics and some form of combat sports, but those are no longer going to be part of the first version of the games.
