Enhanced Games: The ‘Steroid Olympics’ in Las Vegas, Backed by Thiel and Trump Jr., Spark Global Outrage

In contrast to the Olympics, the Games do not ban performance-enhancing substances. According to organizers, 91 percent of the participating athletes have used testosterone or testosterone esters, 79 percent human growth hormone, and 62 percent stimulants such as Adderall. The drugs are FDA-approved and, the company says, prescribed by doctors and administered under clinical supervision in Abu Dhabi during a 16-week preparation camp.

A New Kind of Competition

Since announcing the concept in 2023, D’Souza has courted libertarian and transhumanist circles. Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm and 1789 Capitol, the fund of Donald Trump Jr., are among the financial backers. Trump Jr. stated he could not be prouder to support “a movement that will change sports forever. Here there is real competition, real freedom and real records.”

Critics, however, have condemned the event in sweeping terms. The International Olympic Committee called it a “betrayal of everything that we stand for.” The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency labeled it a “dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle.” World Aquatics decried a “circus built on shortcuts instead of fairness.”

Aron D’Souza is the spiritual father of the Enhanced Games, an Oxford-educated lawyer and investor. Late in 2022, while in a Miami gym, he noticed a conspicuously muscular man and asked how he had achieved such a physique. The encounter, he recounted, triggered a vision.

The Medical Controversy

D’Souza pitched the idea to Peter Thiel at a New Year’s party. Thiel’s reaction was brief: “Cool.” With Thiel’s network and D’Souza’s persuasion, the concept became reality. D’Souza insists the Games are conducted “openly, responsibly and ethically,” with “fully personalized protocols and constant monitoring to ensure their safety and peak performance.”

Aaron Baggish, a professor of medicine at the University of Lausanne and former physician for Boston sports teams, was approached to join the event as a doctor. He refused immediately.

“That's akin to me saying: If I'm a physician watching you smoke cigarettes, I can make smoking safe for you,” Baggish said. He stressed that FDA approval does not guarantee safe use when a drug is taken off-label or in massive doses. Research links high-dose testosterone to an increased risk of heart disease, and the number of athletes using testosterone, he noted, is “very concerning.”

“We have to be careful not to confuse short-term success with long term implications,” Baggish warned. “These athletes, I assume many of them, if not all of them, will go through the Enhanced Games without any visible problems whatsoever. But what happens to them three years from now, five years from now?”

The International Federation of Sports Medicine judged the medical oversight “insufficient” to protect athletes. Baggish echoed: “There's simply no way to make the use of these drugs safe by medical monitoring in the short and long term. It's essentially a natural history experiment to see what happens.”

Among the headline athletes is Fred Kerley, the 2022 world champion over 100 meters and a two-time Olympic medalist. The 30-year-old Texan will attempt to break Usain Bolt’s 100-meter world record of 9.58 seconds. Should he succeed, he earns $1 million.

Athletes and Motivations

Australian swimmer James Magnussen, a former world champion, said beforehand he wanted to “pump up to the gills” to break the 50-meter freestyle world record. British Olympic swimmer Ben Proud explained he wanted to “explore the limits of human possibility.” Both, however, stated they were not using performance-enhancing drugs for the Games.

German swimmer Marius Kusch, the 2019 European short-course champion over 100 meters butterfly, is one of two German competitors. In a video message he defended his participation, saying he would always stand for “clean” swimming, but the Enhanced Games were “a different, separate entity. I see this as entertainment.” He also criticized the lack of financial stability in traditional sport.

Kusch’s rival Proud told the BBC: “I would have to win world championship titles for 13 years to earn what I can win in a single competition at the Enhanced Games.” Both emphasized that no one was forced to dope.

Libertarian Politics and Transhumanism

The Enhanced Games have a political dimension. D’Souza, an ultralibertarian self-described “tech bro,” frames the issue in the language of personal sovereignty: “My body, my choice.” “No association, no government, no paternalistic bureaucracy” should dictate what athletes do with their bodies, he has argued.

The vision extends beyond sport. D’Souza speaks of “leading humanity into the next age” and sees doping bans as brakes on development. “The question is: What is the next age? There are only two options: the age of artificial intelligence, in which machines are superior to humans – or the age in which humans are upgraded and preserve their superiority over machines.” He likens doping bans to a university permitting typewriters but not computers.

Peter Thiel, a vocal transhumanist, wants to live to 120 and invests heavily in longevity research. The Enhanced Games, under the banner of “longevity,” align with his ideology. D’Souza has spoken of creating “a new superhumanity.”

The event’s business model extends beyond ticket sales. The company aims to sell the same performance-enhancing substances directly to customers, with a goal of establishing “a safe, regulated, transparent and medically steered process” – a move critics describe as an attempt to normalize dangerous drug use.

Reaction from Traditional Sport

Not all athletes use enhancements. CEO Max Martin said some competitors wish to remain eligible for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. “We have many athletes who don’t take enhancements and who would like to participate in the 2028 Olympics,” he noted.

German anti-doping bodies and sport federations have issued stark warnings. The National Anti-Doping Agency of Germany called the Enhanced Games “misleading and fundamentally wrong.” NADA chairman Lars Mortsiefer said, “The promise of safe and fair sport by the organizers through experimental doping of athletes is a very dangerous fallacy.”

The German Olympic Sports Confederation pointed to “incalculable health risks for participants.” The German Swimming Association condemned the project “in the strongest possible terms.” DSV board chairman Jan Pommer said, “The 'Enhanced Games' stand diametrically opposed to everything that sport stands for. They mock fairness, health and the very right of sport to exist by not only tolerating doping, but staging it as a supposedly autonomous option for self-optimization.”

Top German swimmer Josha Salchow, the national record holder over 100 meters freestyle, called the Games “an extremely great danger for current sport as we have known it.” “The reasons and values why people do sport, why children start it, are being shifted,” Salchow told WDR. “The point of sport is actually that I get the maximum out of my potential as a human being. The participants in Las Vegas, however, are solely concerned with squeezing even more money out of their careers, while at the same time putting their health at risk.”

A Heated Debate

With the spectacle lasting only a few hours and featuring around 50 athletes, doping expert Hajo Seppelt of ARD considers the Enhanced Games “more of a dud than an alternative to the Olympic Games.” He observed that “interest is obviously not very great, even though millions are being dangled.” Athletes who openly state they are doping are automatically banned from traditional sport.

The World Anti-Doping Agency and the IOC issued a joint statement in 2025 declaring: “Such substances can have serious long-term health consequences – even death – and encouraging athletes to use them is absolutely irresponsible and immoral. No sporting success is worth paying such a price.”

As night falls on the Las Vegas Strip, the privately financed arena will be the stage for what organizers call a “new global sports competition where elite athletes push the limits of human performance.” Whether the event is a bold scientific experiment or a dangerous libertarian stunt remains a matter of bitter dispute.