The Enhanced Games Wants to Be More Than a Steroid Olympics
The Enhanced Games markets itself as a drug-friendly alternative to the Olympics. But cofounder and CEO Max Martin says the company’s ambitions extend past sports, into human health and performance optimization. The inaugural Enhanced Games will take place May 24 in Las Vegas, with 50 athletes aged 21 and older competing to break world records in swimming, track, and weightlifting.
Use of performance-enhancing drugs is not required, but athletes are allowed to use certain substances as long as they have been approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration and are taken under medical supervision.
It will be up to the individual athletes if they want to disclose whether they’re competing enhanced or not. The company behind the event, Enhanced Group, wants to change how performance-enhancing drugs are used and viewed in sport and beyond, Martin told Front Office Sports . “If you look at Hollywood, every actor is enhanced,” Martin said, speaking to FOS on May 8—the day Enhanced Group began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ENHA.
“If you look at some of the top executives in the world, many of them are openly enhanced. ” But athletes, “the people that actually need it the most, because being an elite athlete is so taxing on your body,” are prohibited from using the same performance-enhancing substances, he explained. The categories of allowed substances include anabolic steroids (like testosterone), as well as certain peptides and stimulants (weight-loss drug Ozempic is an example of a peptide, while adderall is an example of a stimulant).
“Science is the biggest asset we have as a society,” said Martin, who previously cofounded bitcoin mining company Bitfield and before that spent two years working in technology investment banking for Morgan Stanley. “So let’s make use of it. ” Among the most prominent athletes competing in Las Vegas are Britain’s Ben Proud, a swimmer who won a silver medal in the 50-meter freestyle in the 2024 Paris Olympics; Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev, who last year broke the world record in the 50-meter freestyle (although his record isn’t recognized by official governing bodies because the achievement came during a standalone event with no audience while he was using performance-enhancing drugs); and Icelandic weightlifter Thor Björnsson, who played The Mountain on “Game of Thrones.
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