WASHINGTON: In professional sports, the world’s best athletes compete using their God-given abilities honed through training. Those who brea...
WASHINGTON: In professional sports, the world’s best athletes compete using their God-given abilities honed through training. Those who break this covenant and take performance-enhancing drugs are branded by the professional community as cheaters and in most cases become pariahs of sport. They can come back after serving their suspensions, but their reputations are stained forever as fans and peers alike never look at them the same again.
Despite this purist attitude from the global sports community, the United States has decided to host a tournament that flies in the face of this sports paradigm. Officially called the Enhanced Games, Russia has dubbed the event the "Steroid Olympics." On May 23-25 of this year, athletes from around the world will compete enhanced with drugs banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
The idea for the event was thought up by Australian businessman Aron D'Souzo. He learned during a visit to an American gym some years ago that many people who worked out there were on steroids, leading him to postulate that international sports authorities should not restrict athletes, because it’s their body - and they can do whatever they want with it. He believes that competitions without doping controls could give a boost to scientific and technological progress. In 2024, D'Souzo criticized the International Olympic Committee (IOC), calling it an exploitative organization, and also stated that WADA serves as its anti-scientific branch.
The inaugural Enhanced Games have been organized with large contributions from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
Tournament’s Program and Participants
The event will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, and includes competitions in track, swimming and weightlifting.
While the majority of athletes are relative unknowns, there are some decorated Olympians among them. They include American Olympic swimming champions Cody Miller and Hunter Armstrong, Olympic medalists James Magnussen (swimming) from Australia, the UK’s Ben Proud (swimming), American Fred Kerly (100-m running) as well as Nigeria’s Mariam Usman (weightlifting).
For Russia, 27-year-old swimmer Yevgeny Somov, who was his country’s sole representative competing under a neutral-status in swimming competitions at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, will also be among the officially registered participants of the 2026 Enhanced Games. He finished 13th in the men's individual butterfly event at the Olympics. Somov said he joined the competition to "see what he could do in his best shape."
Global sports community’s reaction
The global sports community reacted mostly negatively to the Enhanced Games. The International Swimming Federation (World Aquatics), swiftly announced in a 2025 statement that it would suspend all athletes who participated in the Enhanced Games, and also would not allow them to occupy executive positions in the organization.
"World Aquatics has adopted a new Bylaw that reinforces its steadfast commitment to clean sport. Under the new Bylaw, individuals who support, endorse, or participate in sporting events that embrace the use of scientific advancements or other practices that may include prohibited substances and/or prohibited methods will not be eligible to hold positions with World Aquatics or to participate in any World Aquatics competitions, events, or other activities," according to World Aquatics.
"This ineligibility would apply to roles such as athlete, coach, team official, administrator, medical support staff, or government representative," the statement added.
The organizers of the Enhanced Games attempted to sue World Aquatics and WADA, but the US Federal Court rejected their antitrust lawsuit. IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who herself won gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, said the idea of holding competitions that allowed the abuse of performance enhancing substances went against all legal and moral norms.
Health concerns
The organizers of the tournament claim that athletes will be under close medical supervision. The use of steroids is unsafe for health, and there are many publicly reported cases of athletes dying due to performance enhancing substances.
"These are scary competitions, because athletes, in pursuit of new records, may disregard their limits. They may take too big a dose. Anti-doping controls were invented for a reason, these competitions may be dangerous," Svetlana Zhurova, a deputy with the Russian parliament’s lower house (State Duma) and an Olympic champion in speed-skating, said.
Russian and two-time World Champion in swimming Kirill Prigoda also voiced discontent about the upcoming Enhanced Games.
"I will not be following these competitions. All my work is focused within the World Aquatics area. I'm not interested in how this thing turns out, and don’t see it being interesting for me."
The so-called ‘Steroid Olympics’ are an attempt to put on a show by risking the health of athletes. Besides the fact that such competitions are dangerous, they lack the core meaning of pure sports: to win using one’s natural abilities, and not with the help of substances.
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