A Swimmer Broke a World Record at the Enhanced Games

The crowd’s murmur grew to a roar as Kristian Gkolomeev hit the final quarter of the 50-meter freestyle swim, the Las Vegas Strip backdrop alight behind him.

The 32-year-old Greek swimmer was racing in the final competition of the Enhanced Games, a controversial sporting event where 42 athletes from around the world—encouraged to dope using substances that would get them kicked out of the Olympics or most other international competitions—took their shot at world records, personal bests, and enormous prizes: $250,000 for first place, and $1 million for beating a world record.

They did so despite the condemnation of many top worldwide sporting agencies due to fairness concerns and major health risks like blood pressure, stroke, liver damage, and psychological issues; some bodies even promised to ban anyone who participated in Enhanced.

Gkolomeev, who has participated in four Olympics but never made the podium, beat the record with a time of 20.81 seconds, technically besting the 20.88 seconds set by Australian Cameron McEvoy at the China Open in March. Except he did it using performance-enhancing drugs and wearing a “supersuit” that World Aquatics had banned over 15 years ago due to the unfair advantage it gave swimmers (as such, the record won’t be counted as official.)

“I had a lot of fun. This is amazing," Gkolomeev said after his Sunday evening victory, according to Reuters. “I'm going to continue next year. Maybe I'll break it again."

The night had been a disappointment to that point. No world records had fallen or even come particularly close, despite a lot of hype, including American sprinter Fred Kerley vowing Olympic champion Usain Bolt’s 9.58-second world record in the 100-meter dash would be “destroyed.” (Kerley’s 9.97-second time would have placed him last at the 2024 Paris Olympics.) The invite-only crowd was populated heavily by jacked bros posing for a jumbotron “flex cam” between competitions; stands were quarter empty or more the entire time.

But even before that big closing moment, the Enhanced Games were dotted with elements of credibility I hadn’t entirely expected. The argument about how it’s better to have athletes who are going to dope anyway under medical supervision makes some sense from a harm reduction standpoint—though experts have doubts—and the $50 million temporary facility that housed the event was impressive: it featured a four-lane Olympic size 50-meter pool and a 100-meter sprinting track, plus an elevated podium for weightlifting events.

But once it was all done, it was hard to shake some of the contradictions in the event’s messaging—and the dystopian, grifty feel that lingered over what felt like a culmination of MAHA-driven health policies Silicon Valley biohacking culture.

According to an ongoing clinical trial involving 36 of 42 Enhanced Games athletes (only two of whom competed naturally), participants used testosterone esters, anabolic agents, peptides and growth factors, metabolic modulators, and stimulants.

In the leadup to the Games, organizers said 91 percent of athletes used testosterone or testosterone esters, 79 percent used human growth hormone, and 62 percent used stimulants like Adderall. All of the substances studied were FDA-approved, says the organization, which also sells PEDs.

A paper about the Enhanced Games by PED researchers published in the journal Performance Enhancement & Health last August notes that androgenic-anabolic steroids can cause “life-altering effects” on cardiovascular, endocrine, and cognitive function and that any harm reduction framework would need “comprehensive health assessments before PED use begins, but also long-term ongoing clinical support.”

Lending credibility to the event was Hafthor “Thor” Björnsson, one of the most decorated strongmen in history, who also played The Mountain in Game of Thrones. Performance-enhancing drugs are largely legal across strongman competitions; Björnsson, 37, has been juicing since he was 19. In fact, because the Enhanced Games “only” allowed FDA approved substances, Björnsson had to stop taking a few drugs that are part of his normal routine.

To Björnsson, an open environment like this for PED use is preferable to the way he came up. He admits he didn’t know what he was doing when he first started taking them.

“By doing bloodwork and by being under great supervision like I am today, I’m a lot more aware of my health,” he says. Björnsson, like virtually every other athlete I spoke with in Vegas, lauded the level of care he received from Enhanced as some of the best of his career while stressing how vital this kind of oversight is while doping.

At the same time, Björnsson showcases some of the cracks in the foundation of the Enhanced Games concept.

For one, Björnsson was the only one of over two dozen athletes I spoke to who was actually willing to reveal which substances he took. Everyone else declined, citing everything from personal privacy to concerns of “copycats.” (Last year, Gkolomeev beat the 50 meter freestyle swim world record while filming a documentary for Enhanced Games; at the time he told WIRED he “microdosed” PEDs.)

“The reason [athletes aren’t revealing their substance use] is because it doesn’t matter,” says Enhanced Games CEO and cofounder Max Martin. “What matters is that it’s a protocol personalized to [each athlete].”

This messaging about never doping without proper support, however, ignores reality: most people don’t have the resources to personalize their own expensive drug cocktail, but still might be motivated to dope if groups like Enhanced fulfill their stated goals of making PEDs more common throughout sport and society.

Martin talks about Enhanced becoming diversified, with a major event like this once a year plus various one-offs across different sports. The money involved will surely attract plenty of talent; Olympians have never been well-compensated, and the financial support and prize pools here were bigger than what many of these athletes have ever experienced.

Irish three-time Olympic swimmer Shane Ryan says the money is what drove him to join Enhanced, criticizing the limited ways athletes are paid at traditional international competitions. Ryan, who is 32, says many peers in the swimming world began looking to unregulated peptides and similarly risky methods to try and stay competitive as they got older; he was considering the same approach before Enhanced called.

Martin cites a landmark 2011 study where 43 percent of athletes in an international sample admitted to doping, lambasting the traditional sporting world’s “naïve” belief that sports are clean. Even if that number is contested, it’s clearly well above zero.

“Now I’m being taught how to do it the right way,” Ryan says. “And I’m being paid to do it.”

Ryan hopes Enhanced can pave the way for a separation of truly “clean” events and transparently juiced competitions. He even calls on events like the Olympics to increase testing strictness.

“What we’re doing is completely separate,” Ryan said during Friday’s media availability. “It’s marketing, it’s show business. And it should be separate.”

The financial argument and the idea of helping aging athletes prolong their careers make up the most compelling case I hear for Enhanced on its face—at least in terms of athletes’ motivations. But it’s the business side of the organization where some conflicts of interest become tougher to ignore.

Head to the products page of the Enhanced website and you’ll find what appears to be the organization’s spinoff of telehealth company Hims, but for PEDs. Products like copper peptides, sermorelin and testosterone injections are available alongside GLP-1s, semaglutide, and tadalafil.

Martin is open about the mission: To bring these products to the masses. He talks up required medical intake forms and regular check-ins with certified company doctors to avoid risks of mis- or over-use.

But if the Enhanced mission is successful, and PEDs become a bigger and more financially appealing part of sports, assuming these products will only be sought after and used in responsible ways is just as naïve as pretending doping hasn’t happened in the past at supposedly “clean” events. If anything, athletes in particularly disadvantaged financial situations might prioritize doping even more.

That’s where the dystopian feel bubbling below the surface becomes more palpable. There’s a distinctly MAHA undertone here, from investors like Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. to Enhanced Games founder Aron D’Souza describing RFK Jr. as “pro–human enhancement.”

While organizers wouldn’t give me any specifics on how much of Enhanced’s future will rely on product sales to fund prize pools and operations, it’s probably safe to assume investors like these will expect returns to remain involved.

It’s fair to wonder whether this is truly an attempt to remove stigmas and change sport. The overconfidence on display prior to the actual contests only drove home the feeling that this was more an elaborate money-making scheme than anything else.

So will the Enhanced Games usher in a new era of athletic capability and prowess? Maybe—at least if you can afford it.