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≡ ENHANCED SHAKE-UP ≡
Last week was a rough one for the promoters of the doping-friendly Enhanced Games, announced with a splash last May, with founder Aron D’Souza (AUS) telling an audience in Las Vegas:
“When my colleagues and I started out, no one – not one institution, not one organization – had committed to normalizing and celebrating performance medicine. So I made it my cause. …
“In just over a year, we helped change the global conversation, not just about sport, but about health, and science and what it means to be human. Because this isn’t just a sporting event. We’re not just organizing competition. We are in the business of unlocking human potential.
“The idea for the Enhanced Games came to life in 2022, during a moment of reflection where I found myself asking why athletes are still bounded by outdated rules that ignored everything that we know about science. I imagined a new kind of competition, one where science and sport and society could evolve together, where we stop apologizing for progress and started to embrace it.”
The event has been scheduled for 21-24 May 2026 at Resorts Las Vegas, with competitions in swimming, track & field and weightlifting. About 100 athletes are expected to take part and each event is to have a $500,000 prize purse, with $250,000 for the winner; world-record bonuses will pay $250,000 except for the 50 m Free swim and 100 m dash, which will have $1 million payouts for records.
So far, not that many have embraced it:
● On 3 June 2025, about two weeks after the announcement, World Aquatics adopted new By-Law 10, which essentially bans anyone competing or assisting with any event that “embraces” the use of performance-enhancing drugs, from any World Aquatics event.
● So far, a total of 12 athletes have been signed according to the Enhanced Games Web site: eight in swimming, two in track and two in weightlifting. Eleven are men, the lone woman is American swimmer Megan Romano.
● In the lawsuit filed in August by the Enhanced Games against the World Anti-Doping Agency, World Aquatics and USA Swimming, which was dismissed last week in U.S. Federal Court for the Southern District of New York, the decision noted (citations omitted):
“Enhanced alleges that [World Aquatics] By-Law 10 has harmed its ability to recruit personnel, especially the non-enhanced swimmers, that are necessary for its inaugural Games. According to Enhanced, ‘numerous elite swimmers with whom Enhanced had been in discussions to sign on to the Enhanced Games have now refused to participate, expressly citing World Aquatics’ Bylaw . . . and their concerns about the impact on their future Olympic and championship aspirations due to Defendants’ threats of ineligibility.’
“Similarly, ‘[s]everal coaches and trainers . . . declined to participate in the Games,’ citing By-Law 10 as a reason for their refusal. And ‘timekeepers, consultants and operational staff,’ whose roles are critical to putting on swimming events, have also ‘declined to participate out of fear that it would harm their standing and ability to work with World Aquatics and USA Swimming in the future.’
“As a result, Enhanced is unable to meet its goals of recruiting between ‘20-30 elite swimmers,’ for the Enhanced Games, putting in doubt the viability of the enterprise.”
● Last Thursday (20th), three days after the Federal District Court’s decision in Enhanced US LLC vs. World Aquatics et al (25-CV-7096), the Enhanced Games announced:
“Maximilian Martin, Co-Founder of Enhanced, has been appointed CEO and assumes all operational leadership duties for the company. Martin is the former CEO and Co-Founder of Bitfield, a bitcoin mining company that was acquired by Northern Data in a €400 million transaction. With Martin’s appointment, Founder Dr. Aron D’Souza has transitioned out of the company’s day-to-day operations, while remaining a shareholder.”
New staff were announced in branding, communications, finance and sports.
So, what now?
The appeal of the Enhanced Games has been based, in large part, on money, and how underpaid athletes can be handsomely rewarded for participating. Moreover, athletes who do not want to use performance-enhancing drugs are also welcome as noted in the District Court decision:
“Enhanced’s events are also open to “non-enhanced” swimmers (i.e., those who follow World Aquatics’s Doping Control Rules). Indeed, competition between enhanced and non-enhanced athletes is ‘a critical element’ of Enhanced’s events and ‘is intended and expected to generate substantial media and fan interest.’”
This isn’t working. The Enhanced Games is a privately-financed project, stridently separate from the Olympic Movement, which champions “clean sport” and after more than a quarter-century since the founding of the World Anti-Doping Agency, has an entrenched anti-doping policing policy, testing and enforcement mechanism.
But there are lots of sports and events which are not part of the Olympic orbit or within the jurisdiction of WADA. And this is why the Enhanced Games lawsuit, asking for more than $800 million in damages, failed.
What is not widely appreciated are the commercial goals of the Enhanced Games.
● D’Souza said last May:
“We’re not exclusively in the business of delivering sport. We’re also in the business of science, and developing and marketing new drug compounds. I want to take a moment to also announce the launch of the Enhanced Performance Products brand. This summer, we’re bringing Enhanced to the American public with our new consumer products.
“This will be the embodiment of Enhanced’s core mission: to inspire humanity with the belief that we can all overcome our limits and become super-human, safely, with the right medical supervision.”
The Enhanced site shows three testosterone products – testosterone is banned by WADA – with launch dates in 2025 and for which “early access” deposits are available. So they are not quite on the market yet.
● Last week’s news release began with “Enhanced, the elite sports competition and performance products company committed to giving athletes and people alike the ability to optimize their health, performance and recovery,” underscoring the importance of the “performance products” aspect of the project as its commercial side.
If Enhanced doesn’t have athletes, it doesn’t have an event. If it doesn’t have products on the market that can be promoted by the Enhanced Games, it has no way to make money. During the launch presentation, it was noted that the broadcast of the Enhanced Games would be “digital-first experience” which likely means self-streaming. Which means little or no broadcaster rights fees; nothing more has been said about this. Nothing has been said about ticket sales.
And that means essentially no return for investors. And that means no Enhanced Games.
Observed: As the calendar turns to 2026, Enhanced (1) needs to sign more athletes for its event in May but more importantly (2) needs to get its products on the market, the key to its finances.
Both are difficult, so it will not be a surprise if the 2026 Enhanced Games is postponed.
Do not look for it to be “canceled.” That’s not the way investors like to exit; a postponement is preferred, with the future still to be determined.
What the Enhanced Games concept has not appreciated is the value placed on the glory of sport and the magnetic pull of the Olympic Games, the Olympic concept and the ideal of sport and peace, as reflected in the current version of the Olympic Oath, taken at the start of each Olympic Games:
“We promise to take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules and in the spirit of fair play, inclusion and equality. Together we stand in solidarity and commit ourselves to sport without doping, without cheating, without any form of discrimination. We do this for the honour of our teams, in respect for the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, and to make the world a better place through sport.”
Even for significant money, in today’s world, the goals of the Olympic Oath are still hard to argue with.
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