logo
Pro-doping Enhanced Games to debut in Las Vegas with Trump Jr backing

Pro-doping Enhanced Games to debut in Las Vegas with Trump Jr backing

Yahoo22-05-2025

A controversial new Olympics-style sporting event where athletes will be permitted – and even encouraged – to use performance-enhancing drugs is set to debut in Las Vegas next May, organizers announced on Wednesday.
The inaugural Enhanced Games will take place 21–24 May 2026 at Resorts World on the Las Vegas Strip. Over four days, competitors will race, lift and swim with full access to drugs and therapies banned in virtually every other elite athletic setting.
Related: On your marks, get set, dope! Welcome to the Enhanced Games – the sporting event no one wants | Marina Hyde
Billed as a revolution in sport and science, the event aims to embrace what organizers call 'superhumanity' – a future where pharmaceutical and technological enhancement is normalized in elite competition. But while promoters cast it as a bold break from the past, critics are already raising alarms about safety, fairness and the fundamental integrity of sport.
'We are creating a new category of human excellence,' the Enhanced Games' promotional materials declare. 'A world where performance-enhancing drugs are used safely, openly, and under medical supervision.'
The pitch is simple but radical: rather than penalize athletes for using banned substances, normalize and study their use in a medically supervised environment. Under the Enhanced model, athletes can either compete naturally, follow independent enhancement protocols, or participate in a clinical trial using FDA-approved drugs designated as 'Investigational Medicinal Products'.
The event's founder, the London-based Australian entrepreneur Aron D'Souza, argues that current anti-doping policies are outdated and hypocritical. 'The Enhanced Games is renovating the Olympic model for the 21st century,' he said. 'In the era of accelerating technological and scientific change, the world needs a sporting event that embraces the future – particularly advances in medical science.'
Organizers promise extensive medical screening, individualized health profiling and oversight by independent scientific and ethics boards. But athletes will not be subject to traditional anti-doping tests. Instead, they must disclose what substances they're using – a model that some critics warn resembles 'don't ask, don't tell' for doping in sport.
The first Games will be held at Resorts World in Las Vegas and feature sprinting, swimming and weightlifting. Prize money is substantial: up to $500,000 per event, including a $1m bonus for breaking the 100m sprint or 50m freestyle world records.
That may not be a theoretical reward. In February, Greek-Bulgarian swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev recorded a time of 20.89sec in the 50m freestyle – 0.02sec faster than the official world record, which has stood since 2009 – reportedly while following an enhancement protocol for the first time. The swim, held at a certified pool under Olympic-level oversight, was filmed for a forthcoming promotional documentary.
Yet even this demonstration comes with caveats. Gkolomeev wore a full-body polyurethane suit not approved by Fina, swimming's international governing body. Organizers claim the suit was commercially available and not decisive in the performance – but its inclusion underscores the ethical gray areas the Enhanced Games are poised to explore.
More fundamentally, many observers are uneasy with the concept itself.
'As we have seen through history, performance-enhancing drugs have taken a terrible physical and mental toll on many athletes. Some have died,' the World Anti-Doping Agency said in a statement. 'Clearly this event would jeopardize [athletes' health and well-being] by promoting the abuse of powerful substances and methods that should only be prescribed, if at all, for specific therapeutic needs.'
Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, was even more blunt. 'It's a dangerous clown show, not real sport,' he said.
Related: 'Imagine if a 60-year-old broke Usain Bolt's record': the story behind the Enhanced Games, the Olympics where everyone dopes
The Enhanced Games are also attracting attention, and controversy, due to the event's supporters. The latest funding round, reportedly in the millions, includes investment from 1789 Capital, a firm led by Donald Trump Jr, Omeed Malik and Chris Buskirk. Other co-leads include Apeiron Investment Group and Karatage, a hedge fund with stakes in cryptocurrency and AI ventures. A video announcing the funding suggests Donald Trump's endorsement.
D'Souza described the involvement of Trump-aligned investors as a natural fit. 'I've had the great fortune of working alongside many members of the administration and other prominent figures of the Trump movement over the years,' he said in February. 'To know that some of the most significant figures in American social and political life support the Enhanced Games is more important to us than any investment.'
Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire known for his libertarian politics and backing of controversial biotech ventures, is also listed as a major investor and 'close advisor', according to D'Souza.
The participation of such figures has drawn further scrutiny from critics who view the Enhanced Games as not only a break from the Olympic model, but a calculated provocation – a challenge to elite sporting institutions, anti-doping agencies and what D'Souza has called the 'anti-science' bent of legacy sports governance.
Organizers maintain they are not trying to overwrite Olympic records or discredit traditional sport. Instead, they frame the Enhanced Games as a parallel category, akin to the professionalization of sport in the 20th century. The goal, they argue, is to explore the boundaries of human potential while provoking a broader cultural conversation.
It's an ambitious vision – and a high-stakes gamble.
Athletes from around the world are being recruited, including some who felt alienated by anti-doping regimes. Former swimming world champion James Magnussen is among them, though the Australian's recent enhanced attempts fell short of record times.
The organizers, now headquartered in New York, say they will not tolerate abuse of illicit substances. Drugs must be legally prescribed and athletes must be medically fit to compete. Still, enforcement appears to rely more on partnership than oversight – a feature, not a bug, according to the Enhanced team.
'There are always risks in elite sport,' reads one of the Games' internal FAQs. 'We believe the greater risk is pretending those risks don't exist.'
Whether the public buys into that logic remains to be seen. Organizers say they are in talks with major sponsors and streaming platforms, but have not confirmed any broadcast partners or marquee athletes beyond a handful of early adopters. If backlash builds – from federations, governments or regulators – it's unclear whether the model will survive its first test.
For now, though, the Enhanced Games are moving ahead, armed with a defiant slogan: Live Enhanced.
Whether the world embraces that vision or recoils from it may determine not just the future of one event, but the ethical limits of sport itself.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump-Musk fight reveals fragility of relationship between Silicon Valley and White House
Trump-Musk fight reveals fragility of relationship between Silicon Valley and White House

Yahoo

time27 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Trump-Musk fight reveals fragility of relationship between Silicon Valley and White House

The falling out between President Trump and Elon Musk is just the latest reminder that the relationship between the new White House and the titans of technology has turned out to be complicated. The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) was among several big names from Silicon Valley awarded prime seats for the president's Jan. 20 Capitol inauguration, alongside Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, Amazon (AMZN) chair Jeff Bezos, and Google (GOOG) CEO Sundar Pichai. In the five months since, the president has either confronted all of their companies in court or applied pressure on those firms with his own words. Musk and Trump made their break official last week in a series of social media posts that featured insults and threats hurled by both men. The other executives and their companies had already been grappling with a tougher-than-expected stance on their industry. Zuckerberg, for example, was not able to convince Trump to stop an antitrust trial against Meta from going forward this spring. The president has since threatened Cook's Apple with 25% duties on overseas-made iPhones and criticized the iPhone maker's ramped-up production in India. Meanwhile, the company is defending against an antitrust lawsuit led by the Justice Department, filed during President Joe Biden's administration. Trump's Justice Department has also pushed ahead with a Biden-era recommendation for a judge to break up Pichai's Google empire. Trump even called Bezos to complain about Amazon after it was reported that the online retail giant was considering displaying the cost of tariffs next to prices on its site. Trump said Bezos "solved the problem very quickly.' Yet Amazon still faces a lawsuit from Trump's Federal Trade Commission that is due to start in February 2027. The FTC, which brought the case during Biden's term in office, told a judge in the spring that it needed to push the original October 2026 trial date due to Amazon's litigation delays. One of the biggest questions facing the tech world as Trump took office was how aggressive Trump's antitrust enforcers would be following four years of a Biden administration marked by legal fights with many of Silicon Valley's biggest names. By sustaining many of these cases and probes against Big Tech, Trump has parted ways with traditional Republican-style enforcement, legal experts say. "This isn't the Bush administration," Trump's FTC chair Andrew Ferguson told a group of American CEOs this spring in Washington, D.C., referring to one of the weakest US antitrust enforcement periods in modern history. Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor Anat Alon-Beck expects the Trump administration will continue to rein in Big Tech, especially given bipartisan support for the idea that Big Tech currently has too much power. There have been some positive developments for the tech firms too. Big Tech has gained the benefit of a relaxed regulatory environment, especially in the industry of artificial intelligence, making fundraising and complying with securities laws easier. In an executive order titled 'Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,' the president rescinded Biden's executive order on AI safety and directed federal agencies to remove regulatory obstacles to US global AI dominance. "So they have to take what they can get from the current administration," Alon-Beck said. One tech giant that does have an early win from Trump is Microsoft. President Trump's antitrust cops ended what had become an uphill government effort to unwind Microsoft's (MSFT) $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard that also began during the Biden administration. The decision came when the FTC voluntarily dropped a lawsuit that Biden's FTC boss, Lina Khan, first filed against the tie-up in December 2022. But Microsoft may not emerge unscathed, either. Bloomberg has reported that Trump officials at the FTC are also broadening a probe into Microsoft and its relationship with AI upstart OpenAI ( The probe was first launched by Khan, a key architect of a new movement seeking to expand the legal theories that can give rise to antitrust claims. In June of last year, multiple news organizations reported that the probe also involved a DOJ investigation into chipmaker Nvidia's (NVDA) competitive conduct. The probe was to address concerns over the company's dominance in the market for microprocessors that power AI. The Trump administration has not indicated it has dropped the investigation. And in April, Nvidia said in a regulatory filing that the president had kept in place Biden's export restrictions on the company's H20 AI chips to China. As for Musk, Trump this past weekend said he had no desire to repair the relationship, which he said was over. He warned there would be 'serious consequences' if Mr. Musk financed candidates to run against Republicans who voted in favor of the president's domestic policy bill. But on Monday, Trump made some conciliatory comments about Musk and Tesla. "I'd have no problem with it," Trump said at a White House event on Monday when asked if he would be willing to speak with Musk. "I'd imagine he wants to speak with me." He added, "I wish him well, very well actually." Wedbush technology analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note on Monday that he doesn't expect Trump and Musk to fully patch their soured relationship but would not be surprised if it improved in the months ahead. At the end of the day, Ives wrote, "Trump needs Musk to stay close to the Republican party and Musk needs Trump for many reasons," including a federal framework for autonomous vehicles. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Canadian superstar notches third sizzling trials swim
Canadian superstar notches third sizzling trials swim

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Canadian superstar notches third sizzling trials swim

Summer McIntosh has come within a whisker of breaking a third world record at the Canadian swimming trials after finishing 0.45 seconds outside Liu Zige's 200m butterfly mark set during the era of the now-banned "super-suits". Three-times Olympic champion McIntosh, who set world records in the 400 freestyle on Saturday and the 200 individual medley on Monday, clocked 2:02.26 on Tuesday to post the second-fastest women's 200 butterfly in history. The 18-year-old was on world record pace when she made the final turn but fell just short of Liu's 2:01.81 set in 2009. "I was kind of upset with myself with the finish," McIntosh said. "My last stroke was just a little bit wonky. I can definitely find the other little deficiencies through the race. "The fact I'm knocking on the door of that world record is really encouraging. That's the one world record I never thought I would even come close to. To be pretty close to it is pretty wild." McIntosh's time was also more than 10 seconds under the minimum qualifying mark of 2:13.73 for the world championships in Singapore in July and August.

WNBA Reacts to Sabrina Ionescu & Angel Reese's Postgame Moment With Kobe Bryant's Family
WNBA Reacts to Sabrina Ionescu & Angel Reese's Postgame Moment With Kobe Bryant's Family

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

WNBA Reacts to Sabrina Ionescu & Angel Reese's Postgame Moment With Kobe Bryant's Family

WNBA Reacts to Sabrina Ionescu & Angel Reese's Postgame Moment With Kobe Bryant's Family originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Chicago Sky were in the Big Apple on Tuesday night for a matchup against the defending WNBA champion and undefeated New York Liberty. Led by Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart, the Liberty cruised to an 85–66 win to improve to 9–0 on the season, while the Sky fell to 2–6. Advertisement Ionescu tallied a game-high 23 points, while Sky forward Angel Reese led Chicago with 17 points and 11 rebounds. After the game, both Ionescu and Reese took time to share a heartwarming moment with the Bryant family, who were seated courtside. Vanessa Bryant—wife of the late Kobe Bryant and mother of the late Gianna Bryant—attended the game with her three daughters, Natalia, Bianka, and Capri. "Sabrina Ionescu and Angel Reese postgame with the Bryant family," the WNBA posted. Check it out: Fans reacted to the heartwarming interactions: "So much respect for their connection with the Bryant family," a fan said. Advertisement Someone else added, "Heartwarming." Another fan posted, "Bigger than basketball." One more fan commented, "The babies are growing up." New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu (20) celebrates her team's win after game three of the 2024 NBA Krohn-Imagn Images Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna tragically and unexpectedly passed away on Jan. 26, 2020, alongside seven others while on their way to an AAU basketball game. Gianna, who shared her father's deep love for the game, was widely seen as carrying on his basketball legacy. That passion is what helped forge a strong bond between the Bryants and Sabrina Ionescu, whose relationship with the family began during her standout collegiate career at Oregon. Since then, Ionescu and the Bryant family have remained very close. Advertisement Vanessa and her daughters were even in attendance at the Paris Olympics last summer, cheering on Ionescu and Team USA as they went on to win gold. Gianna would have turned 19 in 2025. In what would've likely been her freshman year of college, the team she admired most—UConn—went on to win the national championship, a bittersweet moment for those who knew how much she dreamed of playing for the Huskies. Related: Kobe Bryant's Widow Vanessa Bryant Directly Addresses Pregnancy Rumors This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 11, 2025, where it first appeared.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store