The Enhanced Games: A New Sports League That Allows Performance-Boosting Drugs

A new sports competition held its first event in Las Vegas over Memorial Day weekend 2026. Unlike the Olympics or other major athletic contests, the Enhanced Games explicitly allowed athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs—such as testosterone and growth hormone—under medical supervision. The three-day event featured swimming, track, and weightlifting, with a total prize pool of $25 million.

The competition produced some impressive results. Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev set a world record and won a $1 million bonus for doing so. Las Vegas native Cody Miller won both the 50-meter and 100-meter breaststroke events, earning $500,000 and becoming the first athlete to win multiple Enhanced Games championships.

How the Medical Supervision Worked

The event operated with doctors on site—cardiologists, neuroscientists, and geneticists—who monitored athletes and made performance-enhancing drugs available for purchase. Miller disclosed that he used testosterone, growth hormone, and oxandrolone during an eight-week preparation period before competing.

Several well-known athletes participated. Australian swimmer James Magnussen, who won medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, was the first to sign up. American sprinter Fred Kerley, a former 100-meter champion, also competed, though he chose not to use performance-enhancing drugs. Irish swimmers Shane Ryan and Max McCusker took part as well.

The swimming events also used equipment that had been banned from the Olympics since 2008: special supersuits designed to help athletes move faster through the water. This added another layer of performance enhancement beyond the drugs themselves.

In weightlifting, strong competitors like Hafthor Björnsson (a well-known strongman at 6 feet 9 inches and 400 pounds) competed in deadlift competitions, with some athletes breaking world records during training sessions.

Who Organized This and How They Paid for It

Enhanced Group Inc., the company behind the event, is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ENHA. The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and uses a streaming service called Rumble to broadcast the competition, rather than traditional sports networks.

Sponsors like Frame Fitness helped support the medical supervision facilities at the event. Individual swimming event winners received $250,000, with bonus prizes of $1 million for athletes who set new world records.

The structure of these payouts is notable: they substantially exceed what most swimmers or track athletes earn in traditional competitions like local meets or regional championships.

What Happened When Other Sports Organizations Found Out

When word spread about the Enhanced Games, the traditional sports world pushed back. The World Aquatics Bureau, which governs competitive swimming globally, created new rules in June 2025 that banned anyone who participates in or supports the Enhanced Games from competing in Olympic swimming or holding leadership positions in their organization.

The World Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees drug testing in international sports, condemned the Enhanced Games in a written statement. They raised safety concerns, pointing out that allowing performance-enhancing drugs without strict limits could harm athletes' health.

The organizers of the Enhanced Games countered that their approach was actually safer than underground drug use in traditional sports. They argued that having doctors present and monitoring athletes' health addressed the safety concerns, even if the substances themselves were allowed.

The practical effect is clear: athletes now face a choice. They can compete in the Enhanced Games for large prize money, or they can keep their eligibility for the Olympics and other traditional competitions. They cannot do both.

What This Means Going Forward

The Enhanced Games prize pool—$25 million spread across a relatively small three-day event—is considerably larger than what most traditional athletic competitions offer. For elite swimmers or weightlifters, that financial gap creates a real incentive to participate.

The event attracted current and former Olympic-level athletes, suggesting there is genuine interest in high-level competition outside the traditional anti-doping system. Whether this becomes a permanent alternative to Olympic sport, or remains a niche event, will likely depend on whether more top athletes decide to participate and whether the public accepts the medical supervision model.

This is worth noting: we have seen similar patterns before in other industries, where a company creates a competing system outside existing rules—cryptocurrency exchanges in jurisdictions with looser regulation, for instance. The difference here is that sports governance is more centralized and organized than those earlier cases, which may constrain how far the Enhanced Games can grow. But the sheer prize money available means it will likely attract some of the world's best athletes, at least for as long as the funding holds.