In brief
- Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev posted an unofficial world-record time in the men’s 50-meter freestyle.
- Non-enhanced athletes won both the 100-meter sprint finals and the men’s 50-meter backstroke.
- Weightlifting produced some of the event’s most dramatic performances tied to enhancement drugs.
After years of promises that performance-enhancing drugs would redefine human athletic limits, the first Enhanced Games ended with a mixed scoreboard, a record-breaking swim, dominant weightlifting performances, and clean athletes beating enhanced rivals in several marquee events.
Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev produced the event’s biggest moment, swimming 20.89 seconds in the men’s 50-meter freestyle, faster than the official world record and enough to claim a $1 million prize from organizers.
“The [Enhanced Games] last Saturday were not only a spectacular event–they were also a major business success,” Enhanced Games investor and co-founder Christian Angermayer wrote on X.
However, several results undercut the central premise behind the Enhanced Games, with multiple athletes using performance-enhancing drugs losing to competitors who said they were competing clean.
American sprinter Fred Kerley, who competed as a non-enhanced athlete, won the men’s 100-meter final in 9.97 seconds, 0.39 seconds short of Usain Bolt’s 2009, 9.58 world record, despite claims that Bolt’s record would “be destroyed.”
Despite not breaking the world record, Kerley reportedly mocked the enhanced athletes he ran against.
“They gotta do better than that,” Kerley said in an interview after the race, according to SB Nation. “They need to train a little harder, get on that shit a little bit more, and go a little harder some more.”
Meanwhile, competing against five enhanced runners, Tristan Evelyn won the women’s 100-meter final as a non-enhanced athlete, while swimmer Hunter Armstrong beat two enhanced competitors to win the men’s 50-meter backstroke.
The event marks the end of a years-long campaign by Aron D’Souza, the Australian lawyer who previously helped lead Peter Thiel’s lawsuit against Gawker Media. D’Souza founded the Enhanced Games in 2024 and is backed by Donald Trump Jr., Peter Thiel, and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan. D’Souza has argued that modern anti-doping rules are outdated.
“The Olympics are all about the past, they’re about Ancient Greece,” D’Souza previously told Decrypt. “They’re about this natural sports ethos, and they’re stuck in the past. We’re about the future, science, and progress. We’re about acceleration.”
Organizers have framed the Enhanced Games as part of a broader movement around biohacking, longevity research, and human enhancement, and featured noted biohacker Bryan Johnson as a host.
“I’m cohosting the Enhanced Games this Sunday, first time as a broadcaster,” Johnson wrote on X. “I spent the week with the athletes and doctors. So many moving stories of courage and triumph.”
The competition highlights the growing overlap between Silicon Valley’s optimization culture and elite sports. Organizers frame the Games as a science-driven alternative to Olympic rules, while critics argue it normalizes dangerous drug use for spectacle and profit.
“Everything about the enhanced games seems so deeply unserious and stupid,” author Brad Stulberg wrote on X.
The World Anti-Doping Agency and World Aquatics have both rejected the legitimacy of the competition and said performances from the Games will not count as official records. Despite this, organizers said the Enhanced Games are the future of athletics.
“Now that we have broken the ice and proven the Games can be done at the highest level, I expect many more partnerships to be signed in the months ahead,” Angermayer wrote. “We are just getting started!”
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