Next year, a sporting game similar to the Olympic Games will take place in Los Angeles.
The Enhanced Games will feature similar events to those seen in the Olympics and is open to high performance athletes.
🇺🇸 LAS VEGAS 2026
The first Enhanced Games are coming to Las Vegas in May 2026.
World-class athletes in athletics, aquatics, and strength will compete to break records, win prizes of up to a million dollars, and redefine the limits of human performance.
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— Enhanced Games (@enhanced_games) May 21, 2025
However, it features one thing that traditional sporting events have fought to avoid for years – performance enhancing drugs.
Athletes competing in the games will be allowed to ‘maximize their human performance’ by way of pharmaceutical assistance, within certain constraints.
Assistant professor of sport and exercise science at DCU David Nolan told The Anton Savage Show that while there are restrictions in place, there are still huge health risks associated with the competition.
“If you read into it, their message is that they're allowing athletes to use safe levels of these compounds under rigorous medical testing and medical supervision,” he said.
“Now, when I was researching it, I couldn't find what they say are the safe levels.
“So, who decides what's safe? I'm not sure; but if they're using these compounds under medical supervision for short periods of time, it then potentially could be done without any adverse health effects to the athletes.
“The problem is the societal impact, if other people try to follow suit that don't have access to world-class medical facilities and supervision and are not getting these pharma-grade substances.”
Arm, steroids and syringe with a bodybuilder man using a needle for a bicep muscle injection closeup. Image: Yuri Arcurs / Alamy.Mr Nolan said the Enhanced Games are “glorifying and normalising” the usage of performance-enhancing drugs, particularly to young people.
"It's very different when you're 19, 20 years of age versus 29, 30 and you've been training for a decade and maybe you've maxed out what we'd call your ‘natural potential’,” he said.
“But also, because the illegality of steroid use, you have to source these drugs nefariously.”
According to Mr Nolan, while the Enhanced Games “would portray themselves to be very positive”, he would question the motives of major investors such as Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.
Main image: Shot of a young male athlete training on a race track. Image: Ammentorp Photography / Alamy. 12 August 2015
