In Las Vegas, the blazing solar beats down on a makeshift Olympic-length pool. Cody Miller stands on the beginning block of lane one. His arms are raised in victory. MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Contact This” thumps over the loudspeakers as he rips off his swimming cap, throwing it to the bottom. Miller lets out a guttural scream, muscle tissue and veins bulging. He’s simply gained the lads’s 50m breaststroke on the inaugural Enhanced Video games. Miller’s pockets is $250,000 fatter than it was 26.55 seconds in the past — a brand new private finest time for the two-time Olympic medalist.
Is Miller’s win due to his polyurethane swimsuit, which was banned after the 2008 Olympics as a type of technological doping? Or was it his customized protocol of performance-enhancing medication, that are verboten in nearly each different competitors? One factor is for certain: Miller isn’t ashamed of his choice to dope. He’s been speaking about it for months and has the enthusiastic endorsement of his medical doctors, coaches, and household.
“I simply shaved seven-tenths off my finest at 34,” he says, when requested how “enhancing” has affected his efficiency.
A Vegas hometown hero, Miller left skilled swimming in December 2024 after setting a private report at his closing clear meet. “The final lap, my physique shut down, stopped working,” he mentioned in a vlog explaining his retirement. The video ends with Miller plugging his availability for Cameo, native swim meets, talking engagements, and his YouTube channel.
The Enhanced Video games are Miller’s likelihood to point out he’s nonetheless in a position to set data and nonetheless in a position to compete. With the help of performance-enhancing medication, Miller will finish the day by successful one other $250,000. When he does, he’ll leap out of the pool prefer it was nothing. He’ll spend the remainder of the Video games pumping his arms, cheering on his fellow “enhanced” athletes.
At no level will he ever look drained.
“Steroid Olympics” is a blunt moniker, nevertheless it’s one which’s caught for the reason that Enhanced Video games had been first introduced by tech entrepreneur Aaron D’Souza in 2023. The enterprise, which biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer additionally cofounded, counts Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr. amongst its backers. The elevator pitch: a stay sporting occasion the place performance-enhancing medication will not be solely allowed, however inspired. These are athletes prepared to push their our bodies to absolutely the limits — at the least, the boundaries accredited by the Meals and Drug Administration and administered underneath shut medical supervision.
For this inaugural Enhanced Video games, 42 athletes in swimming, weightlifting, and monitor and area had been incentivized to interrupt world data with the possibility to earn as much as $1 million in prize cash. For a number of weeks main as much as the Video games, the athletes had been sequestered at a facility in Abu Dhabi, present process a barrage of medical checks, metabolic panels, MRIs, and CT scans. Athletes who wished enhancements needed to be medically cleared to make use of them and had been then required to work with medical doctors to develop a customized protocol based mostly on their sport and particular person targets.
Enhanced’s CEO, the 29-year previous Maximilian Martin, is the kind of determine you’d think about looksmaxxers finding out due to his chiseled jaw and earnest ardour for private optimization. “Conventional drugs is all about [fixing] what’s mistaken with you. It’s about getting you again to your baseline,” Martin says. However with the assistance of efficiency enhancers, “you may get into that house past. I believe it’s actually scientific evolution.”
Martin calls the observe of self-optimizing by way of substances “enhancing,” however the idea is extra generally often called biohacking. It revolves round utilizing science and tech to realize perceived optimum private well being. The pattern invitations self-experimentation with organic testing, wearable gadgets, and in excessive instances, dubiously sourced substances. It’s not restricted to elite athletes, both. Silicon Valley bros injecting themselves with gray-market peptides, wellness influencers hawking the most recent dietary supplements on TikTok, and no matter it’s longevity influencer (and Enhanced Video games commentator) Bryan Johnson is doing now — these are all types of biohacking.
Researchers, clear athletes, and sporting organizations are largely unconvinced. The World Anti-Doping Company, the US Anti-Doping Company (USADA), the Worldwide Olympic Committee, and a number of other different skilled athletic associations have heavily criticized Enhanced as setting a harmful precedent. Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA, has known as the Enhanced Video games a “dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle.” Critics have additionally questioned whether or not performance-enhancing medication may ever be used safely, elevating issues over the athletes’ long-term well being.
However the Video games are just one portion of Enhanced’s enterprise. There’s additionally a direct-to-consumer telehealth service that gives individuals the choice to purchase month-to-month subscriptions to dietary supplements, (authorized) peptides, and hormone alternative therapies. In different phrases, Take a look at what these athletes can do with clear, medically supervised enhancement. If that pursuits you, hop on over to the web site and maybe strive enhancing your self. Quite a lot of critics have accused Enhanced of science-washing in a bid to drive gross sales towards its telehealth companies. Oddly sufficient, a few of the enhancements out there to customers weren’t out there for the athletes. For instance: prescription GLP-1 agonists and GHK-Cu copper peptides.
It’s onerous to have a look at the spectacle of the Enhanced Video games and not dub it one other wellness grift, particularly while you take a look at Enhanced’s bombastic social media channels. Retired Australian swimmer James Magnussen has been significantly vocal, posting explainers and comparisons of his physique when he gained three Olympic medals versus photographs taken after his enhancement protocol. In his heyday, Magnussen had the everyday lithe swimmer’s physique. After beginning enhancements, his higher physique may barely match into his swimsuit. Magnussen placed on a lot muscle, Johnson famous within the livestream, that Magnussen started sinking in the pool and needed to dial again his protocol.
Given the well being issues, Enhanced’s executives, scientists, and athletes are relentless in emphasizing the corporate’s dedication to science and transparency.
“We’re the protector, not solely of the Enhanced model, but additionally of the motion. If we’re sloppy, even when a [substance] is authorized, I believe individuals can be disenchanted. We’d do a variety of hurt,” says Angermayer, one of many cofounders. “I would like us to be the stewards of enhancement.”
Requested if he makes use of enhancements, Angermayer enthusiastically says sure. (Angermayer says he takes Enhanced’s dietary supplements, plus testosterone, tesamorelin, modafinil, and DHEA.) Martin additionally confirmed that he started “enhancing” two years in the past as a result of he would by no means need to be ready to talk about an athlete occurring enhancements with out understanding what it did to his personal physique. Martin wouldn’t specify his protocol to The Verge, however he did inform GQ that he makes use of testosterone.
“I’m solely doing stuff and solely promoting stuff that I consider in. Which means, clearly, I’m my finest buyer,” says Angermayer. “I’m dwelling what we preach, and I’m preaching what I’m doing.”
Angermayer and Martin argue that critics low cost the intelligence of the typical individual. The latter has incessantly likened the Enhanced Video games to Components One — cool technological developments that maximize pace occur on the elite degree, and ultimately trickle all the way down to the automobiles the remainder of us drive. Folks, Martin says, have sufficient widespread sense that they don’t count on Toyota Camrys and Corollas to carry out like a Ferrari. Then once more, simply because an individual is aware of they’re not an Olympian, doesn’t imply they wouldn’t emulate the behaviors of 1. Enhanced’s telehealth enterprise mannequin is relying on that.
For a roughly $50 million occasion, there have been various technical points.
A pregame convention, as an example, was beset by screeching audio system that left Martin visibly flustered and the press murmuring. Shortly after the Video games began, the stay feed sat frozen for a number of minutes. The jumbotron sometimes glitched all through the night time.
Throughout a press tour of the venue, we had been informed that only one month prior, the land the stadium sits on was once a barren lot. It’s plausible — the venue is by some means greater and smaller than you’d assume. There are roughly 2,500 seats, although the oppressive 94-degree-Fahrenheit warmth meant many seats within the grandstands remained empty for the primary half of the Video games. Talking of which, you couldn’t purchase tickets. The occasion was invite-only. Some attendees had been household and associates of the athletes. In keeping with Enhanced, one other 250 had been credentialed media spanning 75 publications worldwide. The remainder, so far as I can inform, had been influencers. (Media had been informed not to interview attendees. Those that had been caught had been chastised and threatened with ejection.)
On the livestream, Bryan Johnson lower a weird determine, clad in sun shades and a particular UV umbrella to guard him from the getting older results of direct daylight. The opening ceremony featured an electronica model of “O Fortuna” whereas dancers in black leotards gyrated within the sweltering warmth. Earlier than every race, every athlete was launched like a WWE wrestler coming into the ring. The gang was repeatedly inspired to get loud, and at one level, for some cause, “Dragostea din tei” — aka the Numa Numa song — blared earlier than fading into an obscure Eminem remix. Between occasions, the jumbotron ran slick Olympic-esque sizzle reels showcasing the athletes and the world data they had been making an attempt to interrupt. It additionally peppered within the Video games’ speaking factors about performance-enhancing medication, medical supervision, and the philosophy of adequately compensating athletes. A QR code periodically flashed, encouraging spectators to ship in selfies that had been then became AI-generated portraits of what they’d appear like “enhanced.” At different instances, the normal kiss cam was changed with a “flex cam.” A disproportionate quantity of the viewers was, suffice to say, hella jacked.
However because the night time progressed, the eccentricities elevated. The weightlifting occasions befell earlier within the day, throughout peak temperatures, with a number of athletes unable to complete their occasions. James Magnussen — the swimmer who bought too huge — completed final in all his occasions regardless of sporting a gold custom-made go well with. A number of private bests had been recorded, however almost each try by enhanced athletes to interrupt the world report failed. The lads’s 100m dash was tormented by three false begins. Whereas a lot of the 42 athletes are utilizing performance-enhancing medication, 4 have stored clear. Three of the clear athletes — Hunter Armstrong, Tristan Evelyn, and Fred Kerley — gained their races with ease. After successful his, Kerley clowned on his opponents, teasing that maybe they need to’ve doped a bit extra.
Not a single world report fell till the final occasion of the night: the lads’s 50m freestyle. Martin ran alongside the size of the pool, cheering and clapping furiously. So did the opposite Enhanced athletes. On the final doable second, fairly actually, Kristian Gkolomeev touched the wall, and the world erupted into flashing crimson gentle. WORLD RECORD was plastered on the jumbotron. Gkolomeev had damaged Cam McEvoy’s report by 0.07 second. Everybody screamed — in all probability as a result of, thank god, one thing occurred.
Enhanced’s definition of “optimization” is extra particular than headlines would indicate.
Folks typically consider steroids as a path to trying ripped, says Dr. Guido Pieles, a sports activities heart specialist and chair of Enhanced’s impartial medical fee. “They’re used for visible results, and that is clearly mistaken,” Pieles says. “I believe it’s actually about discovering an optimization, not a maximization of well being.”
Pieles is well-known within the elite sports activities neighborhood, having labored for years with Manchester United FC and FIFA. He says his work with the Enhanced Video games is about ending analysis stigma to learn the way these medication have an effect on athletic efficiency, and what can then be inferred for preventive well being.
A number of instances in our dialog, Pieles was adamant that no individual wants to reinforce. For many individuals, genetics and taking good care of vitamin, sleep, and train are greater than sufficient to grow to be one’s “optimum” self. Not like Martin and Angermayer, Pieles says he’s unenhanced, and primarily sticks to sleep monitoring.
Pieles is emphatic that the shortage of information round performance-enhancing medication is a significant drawback. Not solely does it encourage health club fanatics to self-administer medication in secret, nevertheless it additionally prevents researchers from understanding what secure dosages are. One goal of this complete experiment, he says, is to vary that. The outcomes might be revealed as a part of a five-year, institutional evaluate board-approved clinical study.
Enhanced’s athletes, executives, and medical workers declined to share the performance-enhancing drug protocols of particular person athletes. The first cause given was to forestall and discourage odd individuals, significantly youth, from copying athletes with out medical supervision. Nonetheless, shortly earlier than the inaugural Video games, Enhanced offered the following aggregated list of gear used:
- 91 p.c of athletes used testosterone or testosterone esters
- 79 p.c of athletes used human progress hormone (hGH)
- 62 p.c of athletes used stimulants (e.g., Adderall)
- 50 p.c of athletes used metabolic modulators, primarily ancillary compounds (e.g., Anastrozole), which was used alongside anabolic brokers to help protocols
- 41 p.c of athletes used erythropoietin (EPO)
- 29 p.c of athletes used an anabolic steroid agent (e.g., Deca durabolin)
- 5 p.c of athletes used hormonal help therapies (e.g., hCG)
One other objective is to grasp how these substances truly have an effect on efficiency. For example, he notes that the majority consultants don’t consider erythropoietin has any objective in swimming shorter distances, as its main operate is regulating crimson blood cells. Usually, it’s a drug illegally utilized by cyclists and marathon runners. Nonetheless, Pieles says they’ve discovered it could have helpful results in selling shorter restoration instances for swimmers. He additionally emphasised that the athletes had been taking minimal doses of every substance and monitored for uncomfortable side effects. If at any level the athlete skilled a “suboptimal” efficiency, their protocol can be adjusted. In the event that they didn’t move screening checks, they wouldn’t be allowed to dope. In keeping with Wired, strongman Thor Björnsson needed to scale back the variety of performance-enhancing medication he had been beforehand taking to stick to the Video games’ guidelines.
“For me, as a scientist, it’s truly fairly embarrassing that as late as 2026, we have to sit right here and do a small, statistically insignificant research with 36 athletes to seek out out what the suitable dose, the suitable medical supervision, the suitable protocol, the suitable enhancements do for athletes. It’s loopy,” a heated Pieles says at a pregame press convention after one journalist means that Enhanced is treating its athletes as lab rats.
“I say with this research, we’re not fixing all the issues. It’s a begin for our scientists to say, ‘Let’s break the stigma.’”
Bearing the brunt of the controversy are the athletes. Many have confronted ridicule on-line; critics, friends, and followers alike are primarily involved with their long-term well being and well-being.
That mentioned, the Enhanced athletes had been very happy to talk for themselves at a media scrum earlier than the video games.
“It’s in regards to the cash,” says Ben Proud, who gained a silver medal in swimming on the Paris Olympics. Proud’s choice to affix the Enhanced Video games despatched shockwaves by way of the swimming neighborhood.
“I don’t assume I’ve bought something to show. The world report itself brings about an enormous sum of money. What does it change from my previous profession? It adjustments nothing.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by almost all of Enhanced’s athletes who spoke with The Verge and other news outlets — a lot of them have been retired for years and say they struggled to make a dwelling after dedicating their lives to a sport. Financially, they are saying they view the Enhanced Video games as a second likelihood at an athletic profession, a approach to help their households as soon as the highlight fades. Enhanced is already future scientific trials and recruitment.
Every athlete is paid a base wage, in addition to look charges for promotional alternatives. Their coaching and medical testing are additionally coated. And lastly, there’s little monetary draw back to ending final in a race. (The reputational draw back, nonetheless, means enhanced athletes are successfully required to surrender their earlier careers to take part.) Whereas the highest prize is $1 million for breaking world data, athletes can win anyplace from $20,000 to $50,000 for ending lifeless final. Comparatively, a US athlete who wins a gold medal on the Olympics will get paid $37,500 and receives no bonus for setting a brand new world finest.
“I’ve truly misplaced religion in sports activities as an entire. I believe there are extra individuals dishonest than I used to assume. Earlier than I turned a blind eye as a result of it was too painful to consider, and I simply hoped that everybody was racing clear,” says Proud. “I believe now, there’s extra of a drive to say, ‘Look, there are individuals who totally consider that everybody runs clear, and people are those who must be protected.’”
Not all of Enhanced’s athletes really feel that doping is critical. The 4 clear athletes selected to take part unenhanced and are counted within the research as a management group. (Although two of them, Armstrong and Sohib Khaled, did put on polyurethane swimsuits.) Throughout a pre-event press convention, Enhanced additionally claimed it supported USADA officers who arrived to make sure unenhanced athletes remained clear.
“It’s nothing towards the protocol,” Armstrong tells The Verge, saying he desires to stay eligible for the 2028 Olympics. “I don’t know what the research has provide you with, however I personally have all the time taken pleasure in getting so far as I can on pure, god-given expertise. So I don’t care if no matter product [Enhanced] is promoting goes to make me stay till I’m 200 years previous. That may very well be for some individuals, nevertheless it’s not for me.”
Each enhanced athlete The Verge spoke with mentioned they felt no uncomfortable side effects to their well being from the drug protocol. Most mentioned doping primarily helped with restoration, enabling them to tackle more durable exercises extra typically. Each single one was additionally emphatic that Enhanced had handled them nicely.
“I used to be one of the elite athletes on the planet, however I had no concept the place my well being was truly at,” says Magnussen. “Having gone by way of the method, myself and everybody on the blocks subsequent to me, we’re the healthiest athletes on the planet as a result of we’ve gone by way of a course of that doesn’t exist for Olympic athletes.”
As the primary athlete to enroll in the Enhanced Video games, Magnussen is among the extra controversial figures related to the enterprise. Along with being featured prominently in Enhanced’s advertising, he claimed previous to the Video games that he would “juice to the gills.” In the course of the scrum, he was additionally significantly defensive of Enhanced’s mission, going as far as to name the Olympics the “most unfair occasion [he] has ever been part of.” (Regardless of the perceived unfairness, he has gained three Olympic medals.) Magnussen additionally challenged the press’s scrutiny of Enhanced, asking why no journalist was questioning the long-term results of the covid-19 vaccine. (Research is still ongoing, however the existing evidence exhibits severe, long-term uncomfortable side effects are uncommon.)
“I’ve to persuade my associates again in Australia to dial down the quantity of peptides or enhancements they’re taking. In Australia, in case you are a person aged between 20 and 50, and also you don’t know somebody who’s utilizing peptides, has used peptides, or is at the moment on peptides, then you definately’re mendacity,” says Magnussen. “I believe all of us need to get up, really feel youthful, sharper, and do higher at no matter it’s that we’ve chosen with our lives.”
The spectacle of the Enhanced Video games is distracting. However, within the quiet moments, everyone seems to be asking the identical query: Is that this a grift?
Certain sufficient, the Video games are barely over earlier than web sleuths start questioning the validity of Gkolomeev’s report. Within the livestream, it appeared that the report was declared damaged earlier than Gkolomeev ever touched the wall. Enhanced’s spokespeople name the assertion “internet drivel.” A number of instances throughout the occasion, Enhanced’s executives and spokespeople informed skeptical press that every one timekeeping tech was licensed and verified by the identical entities utilized by the Olympics and different worldwide sporting organizations. (Considered one of Enhanced’s staffers held up an official regulation tape measure throughout the venue tour, difficult the press to confirm the lengths of the monitor and pool for themselves.) The Guardian advised the clock on the jumbotron was not synced correctly, which is plausible given how typically it glitched throughout the occasion.
In lots of respects, it hardly issues whether or not Gkolomeev broke the report. His effort gained’t be acknowledged within the official report books acknowledged by different sporting organizations. What this underscores is the dissonance between Enhanced’s official line and the way it’s perceived by the general public. Some consultants argue that Enhanced’s narratives round science, hurt discount, and the way forward for drugs don’t maintain up underneath nearer scrutiny.
“For a scientific trial, you need everybody in your management group or experimental group to be doing the identical factor,” explains Martin Chandler, a analysis fellow on the College of Birmingham’s College of Sport, Train and Rehabilitation Sciences, specializing in picture and performance-enhancing medication. “It clearly says that each athlete might be utilizing a distinct protocol. That’s not a scientific research. That’s a set of case research.”
“It clearly says that each athlete might be utilizing a distinct protocol. That’s not a scientific research. That’s a set of case research.”
“You’ll be able to’t generalize any of these findings,” says Ian Boardley, a professor on the College of Birmingham’s College of Sport, Train and Rehabilitation Sciences. “We can also’t separate any of the results from doable placebo results as a result of clearly there’s a variety of [athletes] who know what they’re taking.”
Boardley and Chandler, who coauthored a paper about potential harm reduction on the Enhanced Video games, additionally mentioned it’ll be troublesome for third-party researchers to isolate what — if any — substances are answerable for sure enhancements or adversarial results as a result of every athlete is mixing medication with performance-enhancing gear (e.g., the polyurethane swimsuits). Each additionally raised issues about long-term well being results for the athletes concerned.
“If we take a look at train populations, they don’t simply take substances for 25 weeks after which cease. A five-year follow-up can be fantastic whether it is simply the 25 weeks, however what’s the chance that every one of those athletes are going to cease utilizing enhancement merchandise after that [time period]?” says Boardley.
At a press convention, Enhanced’s Pieles addressed and acknowledged that the scientific trial had acquired criticism, whereas emphasizing it was developed with institutional evaluate board approval. He additionally famous he was assured that scientific friends would have some issues assuaged now that the scientific trial is offered for peer evaluate.
“I actually meet a variety of incredible individuals who work legally in enhancement drugs — although actually, on the fringes of what drugs is. These guys inform me our research could be very boring,” Pieles tells The Verge. He went on to reiterate that the impartial medical fee intentionally selected to solely use FDA-approved substances as a result of they had been nicely studied and the uncomfortable side effects had been recognized — even when used off-label. Experimental peptides, he says, had been disallowed from the occasions exactly as a result of there wasn’t sturdy proof concerning their efficacy. He additionally says Enhanced has refused to publish particular person athlete protocols to forestall copycats.
“For me, the entire enhancement factor is that in 10 years, we will transfer away from steroids. Sure, steroids have uncomfortable side effects. Sure, they make you look good. However I say there are a lot of extra medication coming — significantly if we do the analysis with the purpose of stopping illness, rising exercise span and longevity. We can even shift our drug analysis profile extra this manner. For me, it’s actually a paradigm shift in drugs.”
Because the Video games got here to a detailed, Martin fell to his knees, kowtowing to Gkolomeev throughout the awards ceremony earlier than the opposite athletes hoisted him up into the air. Streamers exploded over the pool. The Killers had been launched for a 30-minute live performance to shut out the occasion. They opened with “Mr. Brightside” because the athletes bopped round within the entrance row.
“We now have arrived at mainstream tradition!” Martin yelled right into a mic. “We’re right here to remain!”
Now that the inaugural Enhanced Video games are achieved, there’s the query of whether or not it is a one-time stunt or a real biohacking motion. Martin says Enhanced doesn’t count on to show a revenue in yr one. Haters are gleefully characterizing the truth that just one world report was damaged — and that the few unenhanced athletes triumphed over their doped-up friends — as proof that the occasion was an unmitigated catastrophe. Martin says the actual victory is that 12 athletes had been in a position to set 14 private bests. (That night time, I set a private finest for many situations of “What simply occurred?” uttered.)
However will anybody tune in to a different Enhanced Video games? I checked the YouTube stream all through the night time. At its peak, the Video games hit 57,000 concurrent viewers. Many athletes say they’ll return to do it once more. Enhanced says the present plan is to carry the Video games annually going ahead, and to ultimately discover different sports activities, like biking. In future Enhanced scientific trials, Pieles says he hopes to introduce genetic testing to raised contemplate whether or not an athlete could also be susceptible to uncomfortable side effects or different adversarial results.
Outdoors of those Video games, biohacking isn’t going anyplace, both. For probably the most devoted self-optimizers, the search to achieve their private “finest” by any means doable is simply getting began.