{"id":330346,"date":"2026-05-24T09:23:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/330346\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T09:23:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:23:37","slug":"steroid-addled-athletes-to-compete-in-sundays-enhanced-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/330346\/","title":{"rendered":"Steroid-addled athletes to compete in Sunday’s Enhanced Games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last summer, the Enhanced Games were a dubious curiosity,<\/a> a Peter Thiel fever dream boldly touted as \u201credefining superhumanity\u201d through the use of steroids, human growth hormones and any other forbidden substances that could improve performance.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the games will become a reality, with 42 mostly juiced athletes attempting to break records in the 100-meter sprint, swimming and weightlifting competitions at Resorts World Las Vegas. <\/p>\n

Funded by investors including Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal, the games will be lucrative for the athletes, with a total purse of $25 million and bonuses of $1 million for anyone who sets a world record.<\/p>\n

Enhanced made public Wednesday the drug-use rates of 36 of the athletes scheduled to compete, announcing that its clinical study is listed on Clinicaltrials.gov.<\/a> Two of the 36 included in the study and two of the six not included are competing without PEDs, meaning 90.5% of the athletes are juiced. <\/p>\n

Athletes took substances in five approved categories, including testosterone esters,<\/a> anabolic agents, peptides and growth factors, metabolic modulators and stimulants. Enhanced said all of the substances complied with U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations.<\/p>\n

Enhanced reported that 90.5% of the tested athletes used testosterone or testosterone esters, 79% used human growth hormone, 62% used stimulants, 50% used metabolic modulators, 41% used EPO and 29% used an anabolic steroid agent. <\/p>\n

Aghast, of course, are the International Olympic Committee and World Anti-Doping Agency.<\/a> Yet efforts by WADA President Witold Banka to persuade the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency \u2014 or even Congress \u2014 to pull the plug on the Enhanced Games failed.<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/p>\n

World Anti-Doping Agency\u2019s Director of Intelligence & Investigations Gunter Younger and President Witold Banka address a news conference in New Delhi on April 16.<\/p>\n

(Sajjad Hussain \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles approach, we cannot allow what should be a celebration of honest sporting endeavor to be overshadowed by this cynical attempt to undermine clean sport,\u201d Banka said. \u201cWe will urge the U.S. authorities to find legal ways to block this initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers were reluctant to act, perhaps because the Enhanced Games have the unabashed support of Donald Trump Jr., who made a video trumpeting his involvement<\/a> that includes an appearance by his father, President Trump.<\/p>\n

In a statement accompanying the announcement of his funding, Trump Jr. said: \u201cThis is about excellence, innovation, and American dominance on the world stage \u2014 something the MAGA movement is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those words might have drowned out the vociferous objections of Banka, who in October sounded baffled when he dismissed the Enhanced Games as a \u201cridiculous idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the ethical point of view, from the moral point of view, how is it possible that people come to agree to compete, taking all these prohibited substances?\u201d Banka said. \u201cIt\u2019s completely against everything that we are doing. It\u2019s very dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it will not happen, although there are quite important and rich people who are sponsors of this irresponsible event.\u201d<\/p>\n

The important rich people carried the day, and the Enhanced Games will take place in Sin City with temperatures forecast up to 95 degrees. Forget that steroids can harden arteries, elevate stroke risk, damage the liver and permanently alter hormone systems.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Las Vegas strip, including Resorts World, the site of the upcoming Enhanced Games, seen on March 11, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n

(Kevin Carter\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The 2,500 invite-only spectators will watch several former Olympic medalists, including sprinter Fred Kerley and swimmers Hunter Armstrong<\/a> and Cody Miller of the USA. Top female athletes include four-time world champion swimmer Megan Romano and sprinters Shania Collins and Taylor Anderson.<\/p>\n

Anyone who competes in the Enhanced Games risks a permanent ban from the Olympics and World Athletics-sanctioned events. World Aquatics acted first, banning anyone<\/a> who competes in the Enhanced Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe desperately wish this investment was being made in the athletes who are currently training and competing the real and safe way,\u201d USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart said. \u201cThey are the role models this world so desperately needs and they are the ones who deserve our support \u2014 not some dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enhanced CEO Max Martin \u2014 who took over from founder and Australian entrepreneur Aron D\u2019Souza in November \u2014 insists the games support the drug-taking athletes through medical oversight and personalized protocols. <\/p>\n

Leading up to the games, Martin has been proselytizing to anyone who will listen that his athletes use performance-enhancing drugs in a responsible manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf an athlete uses regulated enhancers and is monitored, the focus can be on whether the athlete is healthy and safe to compete,\u201d Martin told reporters. \u201cCurrent testing systems are only focused on whether an athlete is cheating or not. We are rewriting that rule: What\u2019s the human ceiling when science has no limits?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last summer, the Enhanced Games were a dubious curiosity, a Peter Thiel fever dream boldly touted as \u201credefining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[137080,6948,137079,137084,137077,423,137082,137086,48,52,51,47,50,49,137081,137085,137083,93442,776,137078,8074],"class_list":["post-330346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anabolic-agent","tag-athlete","tag-banka","tag-donald-trump-jr","tag-enhanced-games","tag-game","tag-human-growth-hormone","tag-irresponsible-event","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-metabolic-modulator","tag-steroid","tag-stimulant","tag-substance","tag-sunday","tag-testosterone-ester","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}